Arts·Video

Singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson found the peace that she needed by moving into an RV

"Once I'm resting, all of the songs and the melodies, the lyrics — it all just kind of starts to come up.”

'Once I'm resting, all of the songs and the melodies, the lyrics — it all just kind of starts to come up'

Singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson found the peace that she needed by moving into an RV

3 years ago
Duration 5:23
"Once I'm resting, all of the songs and the melodies, the lyrics — it all just kind of starts to come up.”

At the start of the pandemic, Vancouver-based singer and songwriter Desirée Dawson felt a deep need to reconnect with the world. So she made a spontaneous decision to do something many of us dream about: she packed up her life and moved into an RV.

Living full-time in a motorhome is a world the musician says she had no idea about, but she took the plunge and committed to life on the road. Dawson says that one part of the decision to move into the RV was so she could stop worrying about rent every month; the other part was a desire to be free.

Life in the RV has allowed Dawson to travel to remote areas across B.C. where she has embedded herself into the beauty of the land and water, where she's able to absorb nature, rest and create her music.

Desirée Dawson making music in her RV. (CBC Arts)

"Whenever I go somewhere, I have my whole home with me and then I show up on these beautiful places on the land that inspire me so deeply to rest," Dawson says. "And then once I'm resting, all of the songs and the melodies, the lyrics — it all just kind of starts to come up."

Dawson released her new EP Meet You in the Light on August 17th, with songs that she describes are intended to "soothe our nervous systems and support us all."

Inside Desirée Dawson's lush plant-filled RV. (CBC Arts)

"It feels like it's a simple thing, rest, but it actually is not that simple for many of us. And so it feels like a radical thing to do."

Video by filmmakers Jaime Leigh Gianopoulos and Cláudio Cruz with footage of the mountains and ocean by ZenStratus and ZenStratusPremium from Pond5.

Desirée Dawson in the nature her new RV-life allows her to access. (CBC Arts)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mercedes Grundy is a producer for CBC's Unscripted division. She has played an integral role in the creation of series like Exhibitionists, The Filmmakers and Canada's a Drag as well as special projects like Superqueeroes and The 2010s: The Decade Canadian Artists Stopped Saying Sorry. Collectively, these projects have won Grundy 5 Canadian Screen Awards. She has an educational background in photography, and produces film and theatre when not busy here at the CBC.

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