To go back to the beginning seems to be the pre-immenent thing for moving forward. In this story, i just look back four posts and see what i could identify as ballast for this ship gaining warp speeds to the future. A place where put effort into my own sanctuary, not any other sanctuary like the church’s so called space. These words are my sanctuary, they are meant to create a long lasting safe haven for my daughter and i and they will remind me someday that less is more.
Security is what we can do without.
That is the major positive sentiment i am going to continue revisiting to push toward the spacetime aiming to be created. It says something my mother has tried to warn me about from her own experience — overcommmitting. and it says something to assuage the sorrow in letting go of the things, the illusions, the societal norms, the ways we have been going, the material objects, we have held onto as my daughter and i transition into a new lifestyle.
This new lifestyle i have co-missioned with the help of a company of builders. Hill View Mini Barns. I have given them a deposit to begin to build, what they label for their own intents and purposes, a mini-barn. This mini barn i have tried to give Naomi, my daughter, a full sense of ownership over as we collaboratively went to the company’s location in Gray to see and plan with them the options they offer to design an 8 foot by 16 foot space. We chose the A frame model as opposed to the slanted roofed cottage model. We picked out the door with transom windows and insulated windows of a variety of sizes that could be placed, with some previously imagined idea/sketch of where the loft beds and counters and a stove wood go. I went into it telling Naomi, we would tell them a slightly off based truth — we are designing a greenhouse, a place where plants could grow. People get real dicey when you say you are going to live in a mini-barn. I wanted to keep whomever we might encounter neutral, to put our order in with limited judgement. He could judge me for spending thousands of dollars on a space to keep plants warm in, however, i did not want to perceive any judgement for ordering a space to keep myself and my daughter warm and dry in.
Walking into Hill View Mini barns with that mentality is, yes, an insecurity. I had yet to really wrap my brain around what i wanted to do – have someone help me build a structure – and what i needed to do — have someone help me build a structure and come up with the money to pay them. After i left the office, a design on the books that i had two weeks to deposit on — to get the building process rolling — i immediately switched gears. I went to a branch of my bank i normally don’t use and asked for a loan officer and applied for a loan to cover the cost of what i wanted to order outright. The mini barn builders had a rent to own option that would increase the price %30. my bank approved my loan that had a lower interest than the rent to own option.
my daughter and dog were sitting in the office, saying point blank what it is we were trying to do. The woman loan officer, understood. She put her name on the line when her underwriter questioned what i look like on paper. When she called to tell me i would receive the loan i requested, i was moved to tears. she recounted “my senior underwriter asked me, do you think she would pay you back the loan if you lent it to her personally?” and she told me her reply at that pivotal moment, “Yes, i think she would.” That woman who responded and helped me realize what i wanted and needed is recognizably the first angel of many im sure to encounter as i work to build a tiny home.
To pay back this loan i need to work. I have worked as an artist and teacher for years. The money is not great and it is far from consistent. Last summer i trained through Maine Medical Center to become a certified nursing assistant. I typically work two days a week – two twelve hour shifts at just under $20 an hour. I was hired on the unit i did my clinical shifts on during training and i admire so many of the people i work with from the woman who brings the water to patients every morning to the management who makes sure all the pieces fit to keep me in the operation of providing what the hospital considers health care. In the beginning, six months ago, i would come home crying id be so upset with things i’d seen or the dynamics of the staff who were providing attention to the people i couldnt believe lived in the states that their bodies were still living in. I still don’t align with preserving such a low quality of life. yet who am i to judge how people stay alive. I now don’t cry as much, however i am quite astounded at the human subconscious will to live under terrible conditions in a body.
Today, i was scheduled to work, yet school was cancelled, and i cant leave my daughter alone for 14 hours. from 6am-845pm my work day runs. I go catch the 6:15a ferri and ride my bike to the hospital to take care of a handful of other people for money while abandoning my child to her own loneliness, devices or even the responsibility of her friend’s parents, was out of the question. it makes sense to stay with her as her mother, upholding my own responsibility, and yet it doesnt make sense as that same person wanting to keep a roof over her head. These are the struggles of single parenthood, no questions about it. Naomi is somewhat secure with me being gone to work most days when she is at school for part of it and at her friend’s house after school. Someday im sure she will be more able to make food and me being gone will more be a matter of her being quite self sufficient in a kitchen. yet she is still a little girl and i am still her mother who needs to make her popcorn right now and pause writing this installment on moving forward with less.
Popcorn with butter and salt and hot tea made. Orange from the co-op eaten. Wanting to get to sharing the drawings i made in my down time at work yesterday, that are tentatively guidelines for how i want to build out the inside. One larger full sized loft, a twin loft perpendicular under it, a walk in closet under the taller larger loft abutting the twin loft where you would find the ladder to the higher loft in far back left corner. Naomi says she doesnt understand my drawings. the one mistake i made in drawing is i put the stairs on the wrong side at the back of the tiny house instead of where the door is going to be. i crossed them out but hard to see since i drew everything on top of and inside of everything. **
what i mean to say in remembering the ballast of my forward movement is based in the stance that security is what you can do without — is that i hope, over the long haul, to have compiled so many examples of different scenarios that metaphorically and explicitly show how the small, the intimate, the minimal indicates a particular spiritual disposition.
What will i say when the long haul is complete and all these words just dead limbs of a former self ?
will there be a livable space that remains useful and of some comfort and shelter quite possibly longer than i will be?
How will this disposition and lifestyle open up doors I cant imagine being opened ?
Will these words documenting details of a creative process matter enough to put somewhere aside from here after we achieve some small manner of shelter and security?
the last thing to mention of progress and development at the moment is that i changed my mind about wanting less insulation than more. ah the paradox. realizing i need my home to be a 4 season structure means all measures of insulation are a priority. i wrote Zach, at Hill View to say, how much would it be to insulate the walls? and then how much would it be to put pine boards up to cover the pink fiber glass singular option they offer ? the insulation itself is an extra $800 and then the pine boards over roughly $1000+ more. he offered electricity with a single above head light and some outlets for $1500, yet that would put the lead time out another 5 weeks or so. At the moment I’m practicing this writing vocation religiously to prepare for an April 6 arrival.
I responded to the costs with asking him to just skip it. I will pay for the insulation , but i will find the boards to finish off the walls myself. and price out solar panel costs for the future. I have begun to consider a kickstarter campaign explaining my mission and the total costs of what i will need to cover to complete the inside construction. I am typically adverse to online begging. However, this is becoming a really solid project and i have no shame in searching for salvage material that may mean nothing to someone else laying around a job site or yard. Plus, the amount of money i can haul in to complete this by the end of summer may shy in comparison to wood costs these days.
**
True Blue Island 