Musings: Cellar Door

A wrecked trailer with no side door isn’t the obvious start to a creative life on wheels—unless it keeps calling your name. In this episode we share the full, unglossed story of The Chariot, Mo’s DIY mobile studio built from a $1,500 shell, a stack of tarot pulls, and a stubborn need to turn fear of stagnation into honest motion. What began as a quest to “get to the West Coast” became a deeper practice: learning tools, learning patience, and learning to separate running away from moving toward.

This story is equal parts DIY build and nervous‑system repair: trading urgency for practice, comparison for curiosity, and perfection for iteration. If your “one‑month” project is creeping toward year three, you’ll find both solidarity and strategy here—how to outsource the parts you can’t do, how to add a year to your timeline without shame, and how to keep the dream alive when progress feels invisible. The Chariot Mobile Studio Project taught Mo that movement is more than miles and pavement; it’s the shift from panic to presence.

If this resonates, follow along, share it with a friend who’s mid‑build, and leave a review to help others find the show. 

Tell me: what dream refuses to let you quit?

Instagram: @this.is.a.metaphor & @joyscout.mo

Email Mo: mo@joyscoutstudio.com

Cover Design by: Joyscout Studio // For commissioned art & design inquiries: Joyscout Studio

“Don’t get Deterred, get Inspired”

Chapters

• 0:07 Naming The Chariot And The Dream
• 1:16 Longing For Movement And Westward Pull
• 7:37 Anxiety, Tarot, And Choosing A Path
• 12:23 The Chariot Eagle Appears
• 17:33 Buying The Shell And Chasing A Door
• 23:19 A Year Inside A Boat Warehouse
• 28:25 Non‑Square Walls And Doubt

Transcript

Mo: 0:07

It has dawned on me that perhaps I should give Clarity on a little project that I have been slowly making progress on over the past few years. Her name is The Chariot, and she is a mobile studio, which I thought was I just thought that this was so clear. Me saying the words mobile studio out loud that that that would provide all the description and the feelings necessary for anybody coming across my path to know who I am, what I do, and why I'm doing it. You know, I can be on the road and take my work with me. Ta-da! And life would be simple. And I could walk into a room and no one would ask me what I do. I would be very well known for being able-bodied, capable, and artful. And I'd have this studio to dazzle you wherever I went. Because I'm really into dazzling. When I decided to do this project, I was in a spot in which I had a very well-paid job. And and I was freelancing, and I was in a spot in which I wanted something undefined. Like I wanted, I just I imagined this. I remember that I had had this dream that I was skydiving, and I was in a plane somewhere over I want to say the Congo. I don't know exactly what that means now in retrospect. Only that I had no fear in jumping, and it was cinematic in the way that sometimes my experiences and my dreams can be, as if I was watching like I felt as though it was both me and then a character I was playing, and then also a film that I was watching and inspired by. How do I get to where I'm going? Which in my mind was like, I need to get to the West Coast immediately. That's what I need to get. And and yet it was like the path, like I needed the path there to be laid with uh with reason and with meaning and with good intention. Like I couldn't just go there for some reason. I just couldn't go there. I needed it to be because I was going on a road trip or because I'd be coming back. You know, I'm not staying there, even though I wanted to live there and like be there and still do in a lot of regards. As much as I want to be and live anywhere that is invigorating for me. But I was absolutely, absolutely more and more taken with the idea of doing this project, like this great project of DIY. Like I didn't want to just buy some finished van. You know, I was looking at buses, I was looking at finished RVs, and none of them were like, I would imagine myself being in this space, and the feeling that I would get is the same exact feeling that I would get when I was in my very gorgeous home, which was that I was stuck or trapped, or that I couldn't feel movement, or that life was like happening around me and not, you know, within the walls. And and I would feel that feeling many places. I would feel it, no, my what that feeling could find me no matter where I was at the time. And it was a feeling that would push me over and overwhelm me, and quite honestly, was years and years of of compounded trauma and anxiety and nervous system obliteration. And and I didn't know any of this at the time, other than that that feeling was the worst. You know, it was one of the worst feelings. It was one of the most compounded feelings, more so than I think the just the total gut-punching, heart-wrenching feeling of having your heart broken. Like that, that was a feeling that was almost more manageable than I think this fear of life passing me by that I was trying to solve by by really running away from all the things that I'd built. And I didn't think that that was what was happening, but it it very much was. The mind is wonderful and beautiful, and mind has an ability to create solutions, so many solutions, even if the the best one at the time would have been to to sit with the the discomfort, but I was not equipped to do that, and so I bought I bought a a trailer project, and I remember I'd been laying so much tarot at the time, and tarot it was is just this I was such a a glimpse into like a voice, like a teacher or some great guidance system that helped me trust my own self and also at times and through great, I think, learning and um distancing myself a little bit from it, is able to to not abuse it and to trust myself and to use it as this way of articulating or seeing a different perspective. And and the more that I was laying cards, like in the morning as I reflected on my day or I was journaling, the chariot card would come up. And and I don't know when exactly it happened, but I remember you know, telling friends and they'd, you know, they'd check in and be like, How's the the search going for the RV and all that? And and we just started calling it the chariot, like, how's the search for the chariot coming? You know, because this card just started to manifest itself and and that's what we referred to it as. And and I took I took months to to do this, which at the time felt like forever. Like I was supposed to know immediately. And then it was it was as if I believed that if you have the thought, then comes the answer, and then comes the doing, and then comes the thought of how beautiful something can be, and then that beauty becomes itself, and then you get what you want, and you get on the road, and life becomes easy and beautiful, and everything arrives for you. And in a lot of ways, I'm sure a lot of the stuff did in fact happen for me, but nothing is like immediate other than the beautiful glimpses of grace that I think we're given when there is no attachment or or urgency in in them coming. And uh I was I was up in DC. I remember I was up in DC for about a month, you know, really spending a lot of time with someone that I someone that I really liked. And and yet it was he was just this great distraction for me from this this thing that I needed that I felt that I needed to make a decision on. And and when I came back, I was supposed to, you know, get my affairs in order and do a project or two, and then fly back up to see him. And it was so funny because I had bought a ticket to see him, and as I was on my way to the airport, the first trip, I got to the airport and they were like, hey, this ticket is not until May, and it is March, right? And I was like, Well, that's hilarious. I guess I'll be visiting you in May as well, you know? And so I ended up getting like a new ticket to see him in March, and then when May was coming around, I was gonna come back up, and it was like this exciting thing, except as May approached, I was feeling more and more like I was not doing the thing that I said that I was gonna do, which was a really big, I would say, a pattern for me. Not that I didn't get to it eventually, but that the path to getting there was far more painful than I wanted it to be. And I just wanted to find the container for my, for this next part to take place in, you know, and I remember it was like six hours before my flight, and I decided to like hop online and to marketplace, and I and I had been looking for trailers, you know, for for months, possibly weeks, possibly months, and the first fucking thing that pops up is this trailer that is it's called The Chariot Eagle. And I mean she was like fifty, she was listed for like $1,500, you know, a wonderful price. And I felt viscerally that this was this was it. This is that this is what I wanted. This is this was for me. And I, you know, I reached out to the person and I kind of, you know, hinted a little bit about the significance of finding it, not being a total crazy person online because I didn't want to blow, you know, blow the magic. And so I ended up not leaving. I ended up not going to see this person that I that I had been seeing and kind of kind of obliterating that that relationship, whatever that could have become, because I just couldn't, I just didn't have space for it. No matter how good it was, no matter how good he was, it was just like I didn't have space for it because I wanted, it was like I can't have all the things that I want if this thing isn't ready. Like I'm not ready if this isn't ready. And I it was like this great fear that I couldn't have any of the things that I wanted if I wasn't doing what I had to do, you know, like as if there was some great sacrifice needed because how can you see all that I am if you can't see what it is I can do, you know, as if I was quite the iceberg and everything was underneath, and that felt ominous and and overwhelming and disheartening for me. And yet here's this trailer, and I was like, let's fucking go. And so I showed up, got the tour, and you she was just fucking, you know. I remember the picture from the inside, like the inside was just wires hanging. It was it was it was like some rotted fiberglass. I mean, she was a shell. She was a shell, big back door that like came down to the ground, which is what I had daydreamed about. And a side door, which I also wanted as a you know, smaller entrance, was perfectly ripped off. She didn't even have one. And I remember texting my my uncle, who has, you know, super skilled contractor and in in construction and home remodeling, and a very smart person and a resourceful person. And I was like, you know, should I do this? And he was kind of, you know, gauging off of photos. He was just like, how much is it? And then and then you know when I confirmed that it was 1500, he was like, just fucking go for it. Like there's no the price like that. He's like, you know, you can just turn around and sell it. It's fine. If it doesn't work out, just give it a go. And and so, you know, I bought it. I bought it. And I was like, this is it. Everything's gonna be, everything's gonna happen now. And boy oh boy, was it insane? Was it insane to find someone to build me a door? The metaphors that were in the journey of finding someone to build a door. I was not in any way, shape, or fucking form ready for the amount of inquiry that it took and being blown off, and being, you know, just waiting and waiting and waiting, and also just not knowing, like, that it was okay that other parts of my life kept going. Like it was like as if everything else had to stop because this thing wasn't in motion, and and it would, I mean, it broke me, I think, to just be like, why can't I have this thing that I want? When the truth is, is I could have had a lot of things that I wanted totally complete for the right price tag, I could have gotten something totally done. Not exactly what I wanted. I would have been sacrificing the dream and the desire, probably. And yet what I felt viscerally was that I had to put the time and energy into my project because I can do it. And yet I had no idea how to do any of this stuff. Like the amount of absolute overwhelm that I felt in thinking, like, why did you think that you could do this? And I remember when I had someone finally like take so much interest in the project, I felt that feeling of that camaraderie of when someone is illuminated by inspiration, you know, like that look that you have when someone is on board. And I remember was like, okay, I'm in. I'm in if you're in, if you want to build this door, if you want to do the fiberglass, and then for the next literal year, you know, two guys in a boat warehouse in St. Pete were working on this trailer inside and redoing the floors and the walls. I mean, she got quite the facelift on the interior part of the the design because she was just she was a wreck, you know, and her windows needed replacing and she had an AC, but all the wiring was cut, and and it was just like and I just I just was so hopeful that that people would show up to do it, and people were kind of interested, but you know, fiberglass when there's nothing else in there is a pretty bouncy thing, and like a lot of these almost I didn't meet a single woman that does fiberglass, but all the guys most of them were really big dudes, and they were like, There's no way I'm stepping inside of this container, and the end of that year, the quest to find a door was like I remember the the the very last song on my Spotify song list, the very last song that made it to like the most played of the year, and I I think it's like 50 songs, right? Was Cellar Door and the song Cellar Door. And I remember I was sitting inside of Lasana at the gym after I'd just gotten the text message that um you know that the that I was on to the next part of the project, you know, the door was done and she had a door. Like she had a photo of the door being on her, and it was just this this great feat that all I I just had to keep showing up, and yet so much it would like ruin weeks, I think, of my life to just be like nothing's ever gonna change, and this it'll be this way forever, you know? And that was just the beginning of what would be two more years of trying to figure out how to do stuff, and she is not a square box, she is not a square box, she's made from a boat haul boat hauler molds, and so the bottom of a boat is for buoyancy, and they're shaped. I don't actually know how you describe that shape, but it is not a rectangle, it is not perfectly squared edges, it's like it's like panels that are are conflicting and and and and it's you try to you try to build a wall in there, and it's just like, well, this is not a normal wall, like it goes up in the it goes up in some places and expands outwards in others, and and you know, she was bowed a little bit from the weight of the the AC on the top, and it was just like so many times I kept thinking like maybe I'll just stop, maybe I'll just step away, maybe this isn't supposed to be, and yet I couldn't, like I could not, I couldn't do it. And I think about that idea that sometimes you just can't put down the the dream, and like those are the ones that are so deeply for you. It doesn't mean that you're not gonna try and put them down, it doesn't mean that you can't like you always have the ability to quit, but I think it's the feeling that you feel after you've quit that sort of solidifies whether or not it's yours, like whether or not it's truly something that you want, you know, that like you can't you can't put down because like you've chosen it and it's chosen you, and you know, I feel that way about a few things that I'm working on right now that I I I cannot quit them. And I think about like things that maybe I have legitimately quit in my life, and I don't know that I'm too good at quitting really. I think I maybe put things down, and that's the frame of mind that I need. Where it's like you can pick this up when you want. Um I've certainly quit jobs, and I've certainly had jobs quit me, which is always sometimes the preference because uh you know, sometimes it's it's like, oh well this person is totally giving me the cue to no longer continue, which is maybe a another bit of grace. But this past year, really the chariot and the mobile studio has been such a gift. I mean, there are days where I'm like, I need to know that something has changed in my exterior world, you know, and I'll show up and I'll be like, this is what I'm gonna get done today, or this is what I'm gonna try and get done today. And to to know how to work your way around power tools and to know, you know, what tools to be using is so exciting, and it's not as simple as you would imagine, or at least I thought, which was like this tool is for this, and this is how you get this accomplished, and this is when you use this. It's like it's not, it's very much a puzzle piece when it comes to certain projects. You're kind of like, you know, there are options, and you get to be creative and saying, This is how I'm gonna do this, and you start to expand your level of curiosity and of comfort. Like the other day I used a table saw for the first time. Um I really want to say a sawhorse, but I just don't think that that I'm not gonna promise to ever get the names right, but I just know that when the saw, when the blade itself is coming up at you and you're pushing something over it and it's sort of slicing from beneath versus from overhead, it is so much scarier. Like, that is hands down the scariest tool that I've used. Like, I I used to think the chainsaw was the scariest thing to use, uh probably from trauma from a high school experience I had, where someone that I knew in school was pretty badly injured from one. Um But all all tools can be very tools can be dangerous, you know, and they can also be just the most useful pieces of just human invention. And yesterday I was really stepping into a state of flow, of like knowing where the tools are, what I'm using, what I'm gathering, how much time it's gonna be to be working on this. And it was like, you know, I've got about two hours, which is not a lot of time, but also is a good window for a smaller project, or at least getting started on a project. And it felt so good to know when to start to stay in the flow, you know, like when you can't find stuff, boy, it'll really, really mess you up, but also to just keep going and man, that is life, like that is just life. You just keep stepping into the flow and the parts that you do know, and you let go of this concept of time because I could totally say that I could finish a project in two hours, and I have done it, but you're not every time. You just can't sometimes you just don't see what you don't see, and you don't know what you don't know, and the mobile studio has just been that for me. It's been many lessons, and I'm really I'm really grateful. But I'm also really ready to finish the parts of this this studio that I myself can do, you know. Like I've gotten much, I've gotten much better at doing a lot of stuff, like measuring and cutting, and also changing my mind and like you know, ripping out something that like isn't working. I've gotten much better at being honest and not being too attached to an idea because it's just an idea, and there can be something way better in the next part, and you can't get to the next idea until you see through the one that you're holding in in your head or your heart or your hands. And it's a good time, like it's a really good time to be able to shadow people that I know that are really good with with building and creating. It's been so fun to watch them tackle projects so that I can take that knowledge, that shadow, you know, that shadowing in the best way, like man, that made me feel good saying that because I would say one of my shadows is the process and the system of comparison, and that has led me to some really dark places. But man, when you compare the way you work on something to the way someone else works, it can really teach you some things, you know. There's quite a there's quite a powerful integration that can happen there, and that is what's happened for me. And, you know, as I as I get farther into this project, hopefully she will be road ready in so many ways, and I will be in a place where I can start taking her on the road to to be doing more of these podcasts in person versus um uh digitally and virtually, and I don't, I don't, I'm not super crazy about that process right now. Um but I'll get there when I get there. And you know, if you're in the middle of a project that you thought was gonna take a month and it's taken almost three years, you know, subtract the first year because that doesn't count, you know. It really, I mean, in my case, it really didn't. And I remind myself that it was like you got to I got to travel so much in that year. I got to do whatever I wanted. And it's like I couldn't even enjoy the fact that I could do whatever I want because someone was doing the part of the project that I could not do. And there's a lot of opportunity, and there's a lot of opportunity that exists for your own personal growth and the parts of the project that you cannot do. Like to be able to hand them off, to be able to step away, to be able to put something down. I mean, how was I ever gonna put this thing down if I knew I could do everything? I mean, I don't even know when it would stop. Hmm. If you're thinking about doing a DIY project, my advice really is to add on another year. I really, I really would. I probably I'm subtracting here and then I'd add on a year. And that's how I do math, and that's how I ended up in this this situation.

Speaker: 30:23

So