Oh Crap... I'm Average - How Not Having A Talent Can Lead To A Life Well Lived.

I’m average Joe, safety Stan, and Christie Lawrence, and I don’t have any talents that revolve around any job in existence. See, I’m 27 years old, and I’m not particularly good at anything. Not naturally anyway. Sure, some of that is to do with lack of self confidence and all of the rest, but that’s just how I feel. So, I left everything back east and travelled out to Alaska on my own, thinking, heck, this will tell me what I should do with the rest of my life and help me find my true talent.

Well, that never happened. Was I good at dealing with strangers? No… That became evident when a creepy man named Joe approached me in the small town of Whittier, AK. Before I knew it I had told him that I didn’t have a phone, I was alone, and in that lonely tent over there for the night, to his reply (before he jetted off on his dune buggy) “I’ll come by with a guitar later, and maybe we can cuddle a little”… He did come by later, and after what felt like hours of denials by me and inappropriate gestures by him, he left, only to hear his dune buggy return to drive around my tent at night…

Okay, so maybe that isn’t my calling. Maybe I shouldn’t be the single woman traveller who writes about how they made their way through sketchy situations…

Whittier, Ak has no houses, just one apartment building on the left, and one hotel, cafe, museum, grocery store on the right.

After that, I ferried and hitchhiked to the Yukon.

Ferry arriving in Skagway, AK from Whittier, AK

Hitchhiking from Skagway, AK to Whitehorse, YT.

Flying had it's perks. Photographs by Mo Walker.

Still nothing really spoke to me, nothing shouted out, your amazing at this! What a natural talent! So I proceeded to get retail jobs at outdoor shops, and even became a flight attendant at one point.

I then met a guy. He then broke his back, and we moved to his home, British Columbia. So now I’m in love with this person, and he’s 22… And we live an incredible life together. He’s convinced like many people that I have talents in this and that, but I’m still not quite sure. So, we semi aimlessly go from town to town in British Columbia, we’ve lived in Revelstoke, Retallack, Mission, and Thetis Island, along with all of the places our house (van) has been and stayed over weeks and months, and who knows where we’ll go next. All the while, we’ve been renovating the van and boat so we can travel, live, and have a ‘place’ to call home with our two dogs.

The day we welcomed Elizabeth Bennet into the family.

I continue to photograph and travel with Virg, and I write a whole bunch of things about it without ever sharing it beyond Virgil and my families ears. So, I’ve decided to share them. Another attempt at finding my ‘natural talent’. But here’s the thing, I actually don’t think I have one. People say everyone has to be good at something, but that something doesn’t always line up with a job that exists or really anything else. So I’ve just started doing what feels right, and I’ve found countless things that I love to do. I love to work with wood, photograph, write, work on vans and boats, and learn about their engines and redesign their interiors. None of these things actually make any money, but wanting to do something is the closest thing I’ve ever found to a talent. So, here is a blog of our journeys.