Wealth, A How To
- Izaak David Diggs
- Mar 7
- 3 min read
Morning. The sun on a bay beyond a glass door. Seabirds walk across sand, complain, beat their wings and rise above the bright water of the bay. The thread of my vacation is nearing an end but I am hanging on. I am in Lincoln City, Oregon. Tonight I will be in Astoria, tomorrow I will be back home in Portland.
I am blessed in that I need little to be happy. Living in the van on and off for years changed the way I look at life: Indoor plumbing? A kitchen with a full sized fridge? Heat in the winter? Even after nearly a year in the apartment I still find myself noticing those things I did not fully appreciate in a past life. This is what I have come to realize is true wealth. Appreciating what you have, even the trivial things, is liberating in ways I did not understand in the past.
Prescript: I am not automatically bashing Trump. One of the issues I have with our president is this obsession with wealth. Over and over he talks about the country “being rich again.” What is wealth? If you have a lot of assets but are working seven days a week over a dozen hours a day…are you really wealthy? Some people find such a life rewarding—(literally)—I don’t get it. I think true wealth is discovering what works for you and having the courage to pursue it against all discouragement whether it is the path of making lots of money or living like I do….or with even less. Going through “road towns” like Eureka or Crescent City or Brookings I see a lot of people in worn vans next to parks. I see people walking along freeways with just a raincoat and a backpack. They make me look posh with my car and apartment and everything else I own. I lived out of a minivan but got burned out on that…and people with a lot of stuff and big house look at my minimalism and understand they couldn’t follow my path. Wealth—what is it to you? Figure that out, pursue it, go with your gut and don’t let anyone dissuade you.
My two weeks is wrapping up. Tonight will be---most likely---my last night in a hotel for a year. When I travel in the coming months I will be dirtbagging it: Sleeping in the back of the Bluebot (my car) in wild places, eating whatever food I packed, no entertainment but the light of the stars and the howls of whatever creatures I share the area with. I fucked up, mistimed my vacation so I did not get to go to the desert; there was snow in the southern mountains that would have thrown everything off. It was devastating when I realized that; I cannot express how connected I am to the desert, especially that desert—Quartzsite, Arizona. 2025 is going to be the first year I haven’t gone there since 2020. But, there are a lot of beautiful deserts here in Oregon, I just have to wait until late spring. That is wealth to me: Being out in some parking lot in the middle of nowhere with the dryness and harsh plants and rocks. Soon.
Two weeks. We put on sheilds, sharpen our swords, and do battle for our time off. Those precious two weeks. We plan and plan…but shit happens; shit happens, you allow yourself to be disappointed, and then you move on. If I had made it to the desert I wouldn’t have had these three days on the ocean, finding new hotels and bars and places to watch the sunset. Tomorrow I will be back in Portland, my vacation in a hospise bed, gasping out the final three days, sharing secrets and regrets. On Tuesday I pull the sheet over its head, express my love one last time, and move on with my life…
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