True Blue Island

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 .

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..

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.

**

reference

bug screen for doorway

mini fridge?(solar)www.sunfrost.com

propane stove – ranger series blind stove – http://www.campchef.com

wood burning stove – volgezang stove – boxwood cast iron – model #BX26E

composting toilet -humanurehandbook.com

lumber 2×4 4×4 plywood

countertop

5 gallon water container

a handful of slate tiles for under stove

solar panels

Theres actually a 8’x 16′ trailer closer than i realized.

called a lead on land, they sold it last year. no longer the property owners.

two other people to call to propose renting land.

insulating walls ups cost by $800. waiting on a quote of cost to have Hill View Mini Barns put pine boards over insulation.

thanks to “building small” by David + Jeanie Stiles

2017

http://www.popularwoodworkingbooks.com

losing my religion

As of today, i began to admit to losing my religion. speaking to fellow members of my island community in passing on the ferri, with reserve, about what i have experienced as a contributing member of the local church. In short, i’ve become hyper-conscious that the church and sunday service is a front for a business. Albeit, a business of generating money for others and itself, yet, still a business and not necessarily the faith organization i once held dear.

Life is bigger than making money and being committed to the profitability of an organization that doesnt care or respect and trust all valid and contributing members. i need to withdraw all efforts and presence in that vacinity and draw a line between my family and those following private agendas and committees unaligned with what i value, what i teach, and what i know to be spiritually inspiring, safe and humane. in short, the religion i have been a part of has become a political scene and not the kind of harmless opiate for the masses that placates my sense of local or worldly injustice.

This isn’t the first time institutional structures have proved to be insufficient to my sense of justice and humanity. it isn’t the first time i have been at odds with what i am subject to or the powers that be. I have learned even with my work and input, as someone with a personal sense of authority, others with money or land or positions of power above me will distort and disregard valid perspectives and lives to cow-tow to the people with the money or the people who weild fear and create dischord and insecurity as the end all be alls. Those of us who have faith and who create and strive for harmony commonly are dismissed from what could be a fine spiritual center. In turn, letting the money and fear run the show, a hell hole is created instead of a place of peace and sanctuary.

i have witnessed this in educational, personal and religious environments now. how poor direction turns something structurally sound, something with great potential to provide for many, into a non transparent “private” manipulation of administration and in turn those being administered to. It is a matter of lazy leadership. Lazy in the sense of not standing up for what is right, Misidentifying or misrepresenting who is actually working, and also just making outright mistakes.

I am not a power hungry person. i will take a stage, however, im really more predisposed to being a lighting tech. so my experience is repeated – in relationships where i give money or volunteer energy to support others in a place i belong to — a place, or a body of people, students, teachers or members of a group. Not being at the receiving end of the money or well advised management, i end up at the whim of the integrity, or lack there of, of whomever may be at the helm or being used as a figure head by a (most often non transparent and non communicative) group.

Thus, i repeatedly learn the steep emotional cost it will take to stand up for what i believe is right in an institutional setting. the toll i pay to ask to pass disturbs my balance. i repeatedly learn that my trust alone is at a loss without the trust, integrity and clarity of those i work with or whom i may work for. Its my misplaced trust that i reel back toward myself once i realize, once again, the institution is cracking under leadership that doesnt look at for all invovled and is breaking down into a hell hole. ir is not a safe space for creativity. These lessons are a life long challenge for the part of me that wants to belong.

At best it gives me the impetus to define myself outside of them, on my own.

I will keep the faith and find the faithful where we belong.

i’ve said too much.

i haven’t said enough.

My religion turns to these daily installments. Writing of endeavors in the Long Haul preside in my thoughts and I turn to the computer to parse out what small steps have been taken today to bring us closer to our very own steady home on this island.

Lists are being compiled

Naomi and i just spent some time together searching out components to a mini-cottage; mini fridges (best buy has a most excellent mint blue retro version we both loved 19″wide and 34″ tall) 5 gallon water containers + a water dispensing pump that is affordable, tile and grout for what i imagine to be a base for a yet to be acquired stove. others tiny home design plans that we compare to our own with very little envy as we are partial to our own sense of space and design. + solar panels — that i have no real grasp on how many watts could power a mini fridge, some lights, a radio, and charge computer and cell phone.

i have not spelled out our plan of action or where we are now as we devise our next steps. These words are skirting the real meat and potatoes of a focused vision.

Still, now you know a dream of our very very own small space is being dreamed into existence and some of our drawings i hope to find and turn into photos to share how we imagine building out a 8’x16′ space. a live aboard bus sized space, only rectangular and insulated with door and windows and skylights…

SEEKING LAND.