True Blue Island

Just made some edits and included links in a previous post, please revisit installment 008

Pertinent to the preservation of writing freely are some necessary changes in language. Now the building measures i reference are, strictly speaking, a shedding process.

for a painter, writer, herbalist, mother.

ways to be

COOL

DIGNIFIED

SMART

let’s consider desire a therapy. and all the above necessary and wanted. for myself and others. and consider my lack of future writing on the matter a restraint and therapy forgone.

for the future you can imagine me writing alone at the kitchen table after having made some food and working all day trying to clean clear plant paint cut or build. joe watching a sports game or the news in living room, possibly on the phone with sarah or a dear friend he keeps in touch with. and Naomi watching a movie rented from the library in bedroom upstairs after playing with a friend for part of the day and going on a couple hikes and bike rides. dogs relaxing and feeling safe and ready to take on another season of growth.

writing: a way to keep cool and transmute some feelings that could be expressed more loudly in person. It also is a way to reach many people so as to share the spirit of a thing.

yesterday i opened a beautiful copy of the BHAGAVAD GITA that Joe has here printed in 1965. was taken with the binding and the insert from the publishers (Heritage Press, New York) explaining each and every one of their publishing choices. They co-missionined a young up and coming female Indian artist of the time — Y.G.Srimati who painted the illustration plates and created the cover design. In all aspects of publishing they tried to keep an authentic Indian thread palpable. Except for the printing, they chose an American craftsman to print it.

a dignified book. classic they say. i opened to the introduction and read how the story line is something other than what i would have been able to describe prior.

although i have read the epic poem once before, in a contemporary edition translated by Stephen Mitchell, likening the sentiments to Emerson and Thoreau. (A version i gave to Jesse thinking he would also enjoy the content) Thanks to Elevation Island Studio.

the story goes, there is an epic battle; the good guys versus the bad guys. the antagonist, Arjuna, is on the side of the good guys and luckily for him, G_d is also on his side in the form of his charioteer, or Lord Krishna. Arjuna, accompanied by Krishna, goes to the fore front of the battle in a desert some ways outside of a central city, and sees not his enemies, but his family and friends. He lays down his arms and says he will not fight them. Krishna then takes the stance of explaining why he may want to fight after all.

monologue ensues. and questions.

i did not understand the first time i read the book that it was his family and friends he was battling. with this explicit interpretation read, i need to reread entirely — this version has the sanskrit written in its authentic form, then phonetically spelled in english, and then the english for every phrasing this particular interpreter segmented the story into.–

“Lord Krishna Reminds Arjuna Of His Duty As A Warrior“

otherwise, finding ways to continue writing about

slow

step by step process of finishing my small scale interior.

enjoying April vacation with my daughter.

Today we had the pleasure of visiting a wood carver’s studio! a new edition to the island art community — Susan of Elizabeth St. graciously showed Naomi her tools and her work and explained some of her process and talked of who taught her – her father, a man in bali, a chinese friend …

The visit followed a few hours of Shedding process; turning to my studio and writing of the Long Haul into two intentional things: Learning and Perseverance. Going step by step.

In hopes of keeping a semblance of dignity and a good head on my shoulders; considering; other artist’s process. Who helps you get the work done? who gives you space and time to be yourself? who acknowledges, in kind, your self acceptance and preservation? who nourishes you? who is patient with you? who talks with you and not at you? who doesn’t ditch you or leave you to your own devices. who will interact?

society would like us to feel that only those with all the resources are dignified. those who makes the rules and those who try to control everything; the nuclear families, the doctors and lawyers, the home owners, people who have money to cover for their poor judgement or their deviance or their addictions and mental illnesses.

smart is looking at what people have done before you, smart is doing it your own way and remembering we’re not re-inventing the wheel here, we’re just putting our own spin on it.

when i write our i mean individually speaking. we all roll our own ways. some of us more in synch with each other and able to slow down and speed up to understand where others are at.

smart is listening to people you dont agree with and letting your heart pound in your chest not getting upset and walking away.

smart is imagining you had to walk in someone elses shoes and then grateful you have the very ones on your feet.

smart is sometimes just what Hermoine says to harry potter – “Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them.”

smart is learning how to do something new.

smart is trying.

smart is not giving up.

smart is listening to different things.

smart is loving your enemies and feeding your children good food.

smart is nourishing yourself so you can nourish others.

smart knows what it feels like to hurt and tries not to.

“This is just the beginning of the long haul… Gather loved ones close. Welcome in the wayfarer too. Light a light for comfort through the chaos.

Remember this day—the ordinary day before everything changes.

Before the unknown unfolds. Before the worst-case scenario steals your breath. Before the wildest hope reveals a path through the raging sea. Before the veil is torn, before the offering is consumed, before the sun disappears, before nothing is ever the same.

Mark this moment. This is the beginning.”

Rachel Hackenberg – Faith and Water

Amazing delivery job by Brendall from Hill View Ini Barns

It’s been a week.

transitioning from plant and dog sitting at Andreas to Cpt Joe’s where I’m going to build out my tiny house with chop saw and table saw stored in his barn.

Mon/Tues 🏥🏥

Tuesday Naomi got sick at school and the school nurse asked me to come home and pick her up concerned she had a stomach bug/virus . She puked once more, rested up and then got a good night’s sleep and was back at it wednesday.

We spent after school Wednesday enjoying the last moments to craft away on sewing machine and playing music that I was to practice for a rehearsal Thursday am. Naomi sewed her friend a “peace beagle” I got her pants together, I mended some holes in jackets and reviewed songs on piano — we shall overcome, ain’t nobody, Oh freedom, the storm is passing over.

Thursday morning I attended choir rehearsal to find out how songs as presentation would line up Saturday night . We are to accompany Nicole D’Entremont , a student of Dorothy Day, recount her time in Selma, Alabama. She was there amongst the masses , working alongside the likes of MLK and John Lewis. She stayed in the Carver Houses , put up nr a black family with four little girls, and was fed outside the home on Tropicana orange juice and eating bologne sandwiches. trying to support the movement and march of non violence from Selma across the Pettus bridge into the capital , Montgomery , AL .

Read more: 008 The Long Haul

She has coordinated us as a choir to sing interludes of music between the slides chosen to recount (and somewhat recreate) that place in time . The time being when The world was trying to shift toward equality, voting rights for all. Marching toward an end to segregation and looking for freedom for all to be treated kindly as the are.

many people violently opposed these efforts and it was white folks like Nicole saying they would risk being targeted and would show up to support black voices who went out of their way to actively stand in solidarity with those being mistreated by those in power. Nicole witnessed the jeers, gestures of violence, the kkk and government officials that pushed, injured, attacked and threatened the lives of black people at that time. those targeted learned a tactic to self preservation — they sang to ground themselves and keep a non violent stance. Nicole reminds us world changers do not keep their voices down in asking for the world to change nor do they accept violence as the status quo. Lives were lost. And that struggle was and is the real long haul .

Nicole was moved to get in touch with Joanne Bland , a little girl at the time Nicole was in Selma years ago. The area has recently been struck by hurricanes and in taking a look at what is going on there now, Nicole realized Joanne is raising funds to create a park , in the name of her friend John Lewis, and a learning center in the spirit of non violence and in memory of the many foot soldiers who participated in the march of 1958.

www.footsoldierspark.org

Tonight I have the privilege to sing with Jan Thomas’ choir in order to give a sense of the songs folks sang during the time . We hope to help recreate the feeling of what people who were there held in their hearts as Nicole narrates her experience. 7pm new brackett church , peaks island . Or send your donation direct to website above. . Thank you.

Amidst these short rehearsals I have been cleaning and reorganizing a house filled with cobwebs and dog hair, a gorgeous jungle of plants , and a beautiful baby grand piano. here I plunked out the melody and harmony to the choir songs I’ve been trying to learn to sing. I am grateful to be able to have stayed here with my daughter in this past month.

In cleaning up, I found a lifetimes worth of my friends great collection of collaged cards she has pieced together from photographs, paintings and drawings. I really loved the cards that had photographic portraits of people in them.

One such card is very fitting to how this week has felt preparing to sing with the choir

Tonight we sing.

Finally finished cleaning and transitioning to cpt joes while leaving a back parlor of housewares full at Andreas awaiting a new destination. Joe has internet here so I can sit down and write and upload images. It’s nice to have a moment to breathe and ground myself into this next moment before I have to go back to work at 🏥 tomorrow.

Was gifted a beautiful amount of faux shiplap plywood paneling that was excess in someones yard🙏thank you Owen.

Ran into Heather who told me the membrane I need for interior finish over pink insulation and before the paneling is a permeable layer to source through performance building. Another grateful moment for having knowledgeable and accessible neighbors.

Naomi secretly ordered me a gardening book that was at our p.o box today when i went to look if the title to the green Saturn had arrived. She said she wanted me to have it to read in my bunk when it got built. ☺️I’m a lucky mama.

The snow has started to fall and my ambitions of being more Hemingway-esque have not quite come into effect… Not sure my manliness will prevail, yet, I’ll keep working on it.

Today some trauma crept up on me in trying to communicate well this morning. Shitty things trapped in my brain that I tried to (not very kindly) dislodge in maybe the wrong (maybe the right) time and place. It’s hard for me to distinguish there being a wrong from a right place to get shit out. Mostly I don’t judge it, I just try to push it through. Still I want to respect others and myself, yet, shitting in spaces that I have also agreed are not for shitting in is just really shitty all around.

Queue the need to order a composting toilet.

And all my worries about money .

Then there was Naomis body hurt today . Her quads and her back. I think growing pains.

We decided between the two of us not quite feeling great where we were at, we would get moving and towards a piece of Micuccis pizza at that.

We leashed up Mercury and went for the ferri. Listened to a person with a bulldog of sorts who was really struggling with life (apartment burned down, five months sober today) and wanted to tell us his story as we sat with some kind friends on the ferri. Its really something what another person’s story can do to help you get out of your own way and let compassion for yourself and others rule.

In town we successfully got a piece of pizza and made it to the car where we park on the street to venture to the habitat for humanity restore. No paneling to be found. 4 hinges for $4 and a quart of paint Naomi and I both agreed was a really nice soft red with a chalky finish called “clay” was purchased for $12. $16 total material purchase 🍀.

Then across warren ave at home Depot, we priced out 1/2″ plywood boards (we would need to paint them white) to cover the insulation in our walls. $400 total for coverage, basically. I need to consult with a carpenter what the best vapor barrier would be.

Jesse called to see if my day got any better and I told him what we tried to research and he is who recalled I might want to double check with a carpenter as to what plastic would be best concerning the chance mold forming between cold outside wall and warm inside. if I seal entirely with plastic that might be asking for trouble and moisture to form. Maybe there’s a more permeable plastic material I don’t know about to use ? We figured Harvey might know And I hope to see him around somewhere soon to ask him.

He also wanted to suggest that there are really good talk therapists that could help me clear some festering wounds that really creep into my subconscious and I don’t have any way of stopping them. I try to retain my composure . I go all bottled up . And then sometimes just tears and tears and tears. And negativity . The trauma honestly creates disappointment for my kiddo, myself and Jesse when I can’t let my reaction to unpleasant scenarios go through me as if I was a window. Jesse and Naomi get it the worst and i know I make them upset when I’m sad. They are loosing patience with me not being able to escape the way the trauma emerges and scatters my goodness, getting us all stuck, as if I were a house.

From all common sense perspectives, I am more like a house than a window. Once I can stop being a house and I can turn this forthcoming 8’x16′ structure into a house, I think we will all really be T A L K I N G and the negativity will be that much further run off and meaningless. I will have a project that really matters to me to work on, to give Naomi and to be proud of and I will feel protected and not like the only layer of protection. There will be a small forcefield I make around me.

Can I talk myself out of subconscious detours and pitfalls this way? Avoid and hold on ? I’d sure as hell like to.

Going to keep on talking research , the work i have to do over the long haul + tiny house materials, design and land.

I could surely do without parts of history and trauma. This whole long haul is to rationalize and record decreasing, letting go of things, and do ing more, better, with less. Apparently, this whole transition towards a sovereign space is focusing on gathering building materials and letting go of excess baggage emotionally and otherwise. Because , in short, it’s all completely embarrassing.

Yes I will be the same person once we go through it. Albeit that much more secure and withdrawn from words and projecting any of the vicissitudes of life into the ether.

Love, good friends and family, safe space, focusing on Naomi, Mercury and work is the way .

P.s. stopped and vacuumed the car in town today !!!!

Trailer/Yard

Sitting in the DMV with mercury the wonder pup. She is laying calmly at my feet in a room for of people waiting to get to one of the receiving stalls at the front of the room. We are number 109.

92 being served now.

I am trying to get the title to a vehicle my father gave me when I lived off the grid on a farm in Dresden for a winter. Naomi was just one year old and I managed to be living in a place on peaks where the sewage would back up into the ground floor bathroom and the owner did not feel good about an Infant being in proximity. I got to Dresden via a craigslist ad to work and live at the Sheepscot General store. I moved Naomi and I off island to try and work and live in central western Maine based on the couple who owned the store being friends of another couple I had known for a while – Connor and Chelsea, doing and knowing good people and healthy living.

The vehicle my father gave me on top of a truck I already owned. A 1990’s gray Ford ranger with a cap. My father has a way of doling out more responsibility I don’t want or think I need and yet somehow it sometimes covers a need. As with his habit of giving me cars he has no use for. The green 2006 Saturn I am waiting to get the title for being the second car he dropped on me. The newest is a Hyundai Santa Fe I can’t afford to register or insure. Somehow it’s mine though . Thanks, dad.

The green Saturn I need the title and am waiting to try to acquire one because it is dead In a no parking zone on peaks island. I have for week applied and reapplied on line and written emails and finally got someone on the phone last week who figured out what I needed to know. Their system is not compatible with chrome or android web servers. So I have been repeatedly thwarted due to the internet platform I use on my phone and Chromebook computer.

So now they are serving 103 and I have sat here thinking of what I need to do to sure up a seamless transition from the place we are living at to our tiny home location.

The trailer is the key component yet to be put in place. I have found one on island, miraculously, in the drive way of the friends house we have dog and plant sitting at until their return from writing and teaching in Mexico for the colder months. The trailer is up on cinder blocks with a wine bottle of Ruminat Primitivo laying on a ledge and the wheels dismantled. The wheels can be put back on when they return. The kicker is the truck I use on island, a silver f150 with a huge lift my friend Nate sold to me and Cpt .Joe last spring, has a brake issue . One front brake is already cut off and kinked so as to push pressure over to the driver’s side brake . The driver’s side brake is about to totally fail and has brake fluid sweating around about where I naively understand part of the brake line ends. I need Travers to help me change the hoses out, but for some reason he won’t. I think is because I haven’t got the title for the green Saturn he could tow out of the way if I did. I really don’t know, I’m just hoping this will get more things rolling to remove and use all the vehicles I am in charge of well.

I bought Joe out of what he fronted for the cost Nate wanted for the truck beginning of last summer. Half I worked off in his garden half I paid him in cash. It’s sitting in his driveway now ready to work this spring again. And to move any lumber or brush or plants etc that need to go. Also I am hoping , when the brakes get fixed it will haul the trailer out of my Mexico loving friends yard over to Cpt Joe’s to be parked next to the barn where my chop saw, table saw and all my painting materials are stored. I plan to build it out there and then find a piece of land I can get water on for it to live more permanently.

Some details about cpt. Joe to follow..