Ok, so I've decided to start putting some of my poetry, lyrics and musings out there in the ether. I've created another blog to that end - check it out if you're so compelled at http://musingsofdavecox.blogspot.com/
Comming up next - "The ex-piano music workstation" :)
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Spring in The Complex
It's Spring - and that means life and death and rebirth here in The Complex.
Just a note here, to any official trouble makers, that anything below "might not be true, but may be a work of fiction, about what it might be like to be someone like me, but different" - hows that for a disclaimer?? :)
That started with finally transporting our 5 pet goldfish, which had spent the last year in hiatus at my work, to the clawfoot tube converted to pond that I'd created for them in our side yard.
They had lived for more than 10 years at our old suburban house in an open pond, without even a scratch, and I figured we were in the city now... Of course, the possum and raccoon that we saw in the trees out back a few weeks before got my radar up a bit, so I put a weighted net cover over the pond and figured we'd be good. Then a few days later, I got a hysterical call from Barbara, asking where I'd put the fish... Investigating, I find lots of tiny long paw prints from a masked bandit... From that point on, it was open season for Raccoon. Delilah, on returning home and hearing the story, shook her tiny fist at the tree where we had seen the 'coon, and yelled "I hate you Raccoon!".
We called animal control, and they said they couldn't do anything. Our tax dollars at work. Go talk with Trapper Rick. Trapper Rick wanted $250 to set out a couple of traps for 5 days - no guarantees. Well, for that much, I figure I can buy a trap and deal with it my self.
So I buy a trap from Amazon, read through the instructions, buy the special "Raccoon Bait" (definitely don't want to catch a skunk instead), bait it, set it, and hope for the best. In the mean time, Barbara has worked herself into a lather, and wants to make a hat out of the coon. I tell her that's fine, but she has to kill it her self - which she decided that she could convince someone else to do with her feminine wiles...
And the trap sits. Nothing. After a few days, the apple starts to look less appealing to me. I figure I'll have to re-bait it at some point here, and give up but leave the trap out. Barbara and I were going out of town on Saturday for an overnight to Palm dessert, and had our morning tightly planned in orchestration, and of course - that's when we discover that we've caught an intruder... But instead of the raccoon, its the possum.
Ok, so I call animal control again, figuring "we'll, I've trapped it, they can just take it". Hum, not so simple.
"I've trapped a possum, and need to know what to do with it."
"You need to release the animal."
She obviously didn't understand me.
"A critter ate our goldfish last week, and you told us to hire a trapper - so we trapped it..."
"Sir, you need a permit to trap an animal, a permit to transport an animal, and a permit to release or euthanize an animal. You need to just release it..."
Hum, so this is where the seeds of civil disobedience are planted, eah? In my own back yard!
So, I break out my heavy leather welding gloves, toss a towel in the car, and a blanket over the cage, and put it in the back of our little Mercedes, thinking to my self "I wonder how many possums have driven been driven around", and head out to a distant corner of Balboa Park. It's already after the time that we were going to depart, and instead of having suitcases in the car, I've got this possum... Driving into a remote corner of the park, I discover that apparently all the rangers actually do their work on a Saturday morning. I've never seen a ranger in the park, other than doing trash duty. They were everywhere that morning. I orbited around for a while, and finally found a little path leading down a canyon at the end of a road. I pulled out the cage (which of course was backwards, so had to spin this mysterious blanket covered box around, with leather gloves on), opened the door, and then proceeded to spend several minutes to coax out the possum. When he finally got the idea, he was off like a shot...
Take two of the fish pond will be an aquaculture system with a heavy planter on the top to prevent critters from getting in...
Because, I suppose, life isn't complicated enough already, we've decide to at least try the "urban chicken" thing, and because I don't like to do anything half-arsed, I've been doing some research. Bought some books, talked to some folks, even took a workshop. Some of the take homes were:
a) Chickens are dumb. They don't care what their coop looks like. So make it out of as much stuff as you have around to reuse.
b) They do need space, theoretically like a coop and a run, roosts, a nest box, and a dry and relatively draft free space.
c) Your neighbors probably do care, both what it looks like, and what it smells like - so make it aesthetic, and easy to clean and service.
d) Critters, such as the rat-bastard raccoon above, would like to make a snack out of your chickens.
So, make it durable, with latches that can't be easily jimmied.
So, we start off with a 12 foot section of cedar fence, a bunch of old lumbar, and a few trips to Home Depot and Lowe's for the finishing touches, and...
And with help from many in our little community (John, Steve, Beth, Chrissy, Barbara and Delilah included), we end up with something like:
And the happy chickens which we are trying to keep under the radar, so as to not annoy any neighbors with them...
The planters are blooming as well -
Our "east" planter, mostly lettuces and a giant Artichoke plant (we won't grow that again) -
alloe in bloom, with hanging tomatoes, and Fox glove (one of those plants that sneak in along the way, and need a more permenant home...)
Just a note here, to any official trouble makers, that anything below "might not be true, but may be a work of fiction, about what it might be like to be someone like me, but different" - hows that for a disclaimer?? :)
That started with finally transporting our 5 pet goldfish, which had spent the last year in hiatus at my work, to the clawfoot tube converted to pond that I'd created for them in our side yard.
They had lived for more than 10 years at our old suburban house in an open pond, without even a scratch, and I figured we were in the city now... Of course, the possum and raccoon that we saw in the trees out back a few weeks before got my radar up a bit, so I put a weighted net cover over the pond and figured we'd be good. Then a few days later, I got a hysterical call from Barbara, asking where I'd put the fish... Investigating, I find lots of tiny long paw prints from a masked bandit... From that point on, it was open season for Raccoon. Delilah, on returning home and hearing the story, shook her tiny fist at the tree where we had seen the 'coon, and yelled "I hate you Raccoon!".
We called animal control, and they said they couldn't do anything. Our tax dollars at work. Go talk with Trapper Rick. Trapper Rick wanted $250 to set out a couple of traps for 5 days - no guarantees. Well, for that much, I figure I can buy a trap and deal with it my self.
So I buy a trap from Amazon, read through the instructions, buy the special "Raccoon Bait" (definitely don't want to catch a skunk instead), bait it, set it, and hope for the best. In the mean time, Barbara has worked herself into a lather, and wants to make a hat out of the coon. I tell her that's fine, but she has to kill it her self - which she decided that she could convince someone else to do with her feminine wiles...
And the trap sits. Nothing. After a few days, the apple starts to look less appealing to me. I figure I'll have to re-bait it at some point here, and give up but leave the trap out. Barbara and I were going out of town on Saturday for an overnight to Palm dessert, and had our morning tightly planned in orchestration, and of course - that's when we discover that we've caught an intruder... But instead of the raccoon, its the possum.
Ok, so I call animal control again, figuring "we'll, I've trapped it, they can just take it". Hum, not so simple.
"I've trapped a possum, and need to know what to do with it."
"You need to release the animal."
She obviously didn't understand me.
"A critter ate our goldfish last week, and you told us to hire a trapper - so we trapped it..."
"Sir, you need a permit to trap an animal, a permit to transport an animal, and a permit to release or euthanize an animal. You need to just release it..."
Hum, so this is where the seeds of civil disobedience are planted, eah? In my own back yard!
So, I break out my heavy leather welding gloves, toss a towel in the car, and a blanket over the cage, and put it in the back of our little Mercedes, thinking to my self "I wonder how many possums have driven been driven around", and head out to a distant corner of Balboa Park. It's already after the time that we were going to depart, and instead of having suitcases in the car, I've got this possum... Driving into a remote corner of the park, I discover that apparently all the rangers actually do their work on a Saturday morning. I've never seen a ranger in the park, other than doing trash duty. They were everywhere that morning. I orbited around for a while, and finally found a little path leading down a canyon at the end of a road. I pulled out the cage (which of course was backwards, so had to spin this mysterious blanket covered box around, with leather gloves on), opened the door, and then proceeded to spend several minutes to coax out the possum. When he finally got the idea, he was off like a shot...
Take two of the fish pond will be an aquaculture system with a heavy planter on the top to prevent critters from getting in...
Because, I suppose, life isn't complicated enough already, we've decide to at least try the "urban chicken" thing, and because I don't like to do anything half-arsed, I've been doing some research. Bought some books, talked to some folks, even took a workshop. Some of the take homes were:
a) Chickens are dumb. They don't care what their coop looks like. So make it out of as much stuff as you have around to reuse.
b) They do need space, theoretically like a coop and a run, roosts, a nest box, and a dry and relatively draft free space.
c) Your neighbors probably do care, both what it looks like, and what it smells like - so make it aesthetic, and easy to clean and service.
d) Critters, such as the rat-bastard raccoon above, would like to make a snack out of your chickens.
So, make it durable, with latches that can't be easily jimmied.
So, we start off with a 12 foot section of cedar fence, a bunch of old lumbar, and a few trips to Home Depot and Lowe's for the finishing touches, and...
And with help from many in our little community (John, Steve, Beth, Chrissy, Barbara and Delilah included), we end up with something like:
And the happy chickens which we are trying to keep under the radar, so as to not annoy any neighbors with them...
The planters are blooming as well -
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
The House in Transition
So, a bit over a year ago we were living in our RV at Campland on the bay. We went out for Thanksgiving at the RB Inn, Santa came to the RV on Christmas morning, and New Year’s Eve we went to a Party at the Campland tent. Turns out that living in the small RV as a house, is a very different thing than living in it as a home base while traveling... When you travel, you just need a place to eat and sleep. When it’s home, you need a place for everything, and, well, there isn’t room. Tempers frayed more than once – including the cat’s. So, we used up all the time share weeks, vacation time, and options for time away from the RV as we could, as the clock ticked towards 5 months in the RV. One of the final straws was that the fresh water valve for the toilet got stuck, and managed to flood the RV’s carpet- this, just after it had rained in the yard. There was no place that was dry, so, even though that house was still being worked on, we moved in to the bedrooms. There was no door on the bathroom. The heater wasn’t working. Most days (including weekends) the workers would be going by 7AM. The kitchen was torn up. But at least we weren’t in the RV any more.
So in this year, we have taken the property, and crafted it, rebuilt it, and made it both a home and the center of a thriving and growing community. We have a renter who is an awesome community minded lady that lives in the apartment in the back. We have opened up the RV (which we can fit in our back yard) for guests on weekends. We have a monthly community dinner, and events at Barbara’s office. We walk to Balboa park, the farmers market, the grocery store, the restaurants. They restaurateurs know us, as does the clerk at the store. We have made two raised planters, have set up gray water recycling systems, are building a composter, have a Jacuzzi that was given to us to pick up this week, and hopefully will be building a chicken coop soon…
Some pictures of the transition and nice features
Before and after
A detail of our low water front yard, with meditation spiral
The appartment in back with three garages - and storage for the RV to the left.
Barbara's loby with one of her beloved lights
And some of the dear folks during a recent community dinner. The tables are made from two of the original doors that were left on the property.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Transitions - a review of how we went from there to here…
How far back do I go? How many threads do I try to tie into this tapestry of a story?
Well, since I don't really know of a particular time that I would consider the pivotal moment- a fulcrum in time that redirected our path, I can only weave in some large themes, to try to make sense of the last couple years of our life…
When Barbara and I met, we were in our late twenties, and our cultural clock was ticking. She was already the owner of a little condo on Utah St. in the Normal Heights area, and I, after having recently graduated from college, was living at home. Barbara’s condo was a cute little place, 2 bedrooms, with a house mate to help pay the rent, as well as friendship. It was in a “fair to midland” income area, with Lopez Market – a house converted to a farmers market with fruit bins made from an old wooden fence; a Soul Food joint that served on cheap paper plates on their back patio; a combined tattoo and guitar repair place; antique furniture stores and various bars and restaurants owned by individuals that still worked there. It was her place - she had made it happen on her own. To Barbara, it represented stability, safety, achievement, that she had arrived in a place of self-sufficiency and control.
Barbara was going back to school to get her Doctorate in Psychology. I was starting my career as an electrical engineer. We had a lot in common, really enjoyed each other, and fell in love… From there, we both got sucked into this vortex of societal expectations, and for a while, followed on cue.
There were forces at work that said that we were supposed to get married – that somehow being in love, and living together not only wasn’t enough, but was actually wrong... Somehow, going through this legal ritual legitimizes and purifies a couple in the eyes of society and church, so that even though we do the same things, and are really the same people as we were before the marriage, that now it’s all good. There is a magical hue cast on marriage, as if it transforms one into a different, better person. It goes so far in its “stage setup” that the woman is supposed to “change” her name – POOF! She’s obviously a different person, since that name wasn’t applied to her previously… But in contemplation, what is the intent of marriage really? It is a statement of love certainly – but so is handfasting and many other lovely rituals. It proclaims “this is it – the last person that you will ever need”, yet the “forsaking all others, until death do you part” clause is broken more often than not, as people in this mobile culture either divorce or find “another” (most often illicitly) – or both. From societies perspective, marriage it is a tidy way of defining how property changes hands, and who responsibility lands upon. But perhaps its largest effect is as a social “flywheel” – adding momentum to things, making it harder to stray from the course – for better or worse.
We are still married, and still glad to be married. But what it means to be married seems like it should be ours to define, not someone else. We have seen many friends divorce for various reasons. Sometimes they changed. Others probably shouldn’t have married in the first place. Some were too young to know what was “out there”. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t get married, but that something should be different – either on the inside, in terms of expectations, or perhaps the concept of marriage needs to change with the changing times. Should it take itself more lightly? More seriously? More rigid? More flexible? There are those that would argue any or all of those options. I do know that people change, and that saying you won’t change doesn’t stop it from happening.
A laundry list of other social expectations came to us next, including “get a bigger house”, “have a kid”, “get a nicer car”, etc., each of which we answered in time, in our own way. Some of them were really tied together in our minds for some reason. Conventional logic said that we needed a bigger house before we could have a kid, so we started planning. At that time, in the late ‘90s, the market was down a bit, and basically Barbara’s condo was worth what was owed on it. In retrospect, we should have kept it and rented it out, but for whatever reasons (20/20 hindsight not included) we didn’t. There are other stories there which I will leave untold for now – but suffice it to say, that we had heard these tales about how great suburbia was, and we drank the punch and walked away in a stupor.
With help, we were able to buy a “technically lovely” three bedroom house in Stonecrest. It was a great buy at the time. When we first moved in there were some fun people in our cul-di-sac which promised a social support system, it had great amenities – a “community center” with a pool, cooking classes, gym, close to a shopping center - a long list of reasons to love it, which for a while we did. We moved in with the help of friends - moving the stuff from the condo to new house (almost twice the size), left the third bedroom unused. So, soon we had friends move in with us – which in retrospect was some of the nicest times at the house. We settled into a new groove, as Barbara graduated with her Doctorate in Psychology, and took on several gigs including teaching at a community college, and clinical psychology.
After a while, this nagging “we’d better get going with having a kid” started to set in, since we were already mid-thirties, and I was born later in my parents life, so I had some worries about wanting our “would be child” to get to know them before they passed. Both of my parents had had bouts with cancer, and I knew that they wanted to see a grandchild from their union. From todays perspective, there are different memories and different weights to what happened along the way, but the facts are that about 8 years ago Barbara got pregnant with Delilah. It was a very difficult pregnancy for her, with at least 6 months of pretty continuous morning sickness. Even for that, she managed to keep her job until a month before Delilah was due.
People ask what it’s like to have a child. The best explanation that I’ve ever been able to come up with is “it amplifies life. It makes everything more.” More joyful, more complicated, more fun, more of a pain, everything takes longer and costs more, but it’s more satisfying. It changes everything. Everything takes planning now. The free-spirited quickly find their wings tied up with diapers and baby bottles, unless they are either fortunate enough to have some social support such as very local or live in family, or enough financial wherewithal to support a nanny. As with many, that wasn’t the case for us. Barbara chose to try the “stay at home mom” gig for a while (which honestly surprised me, but which I supported and deeply appreciated), and tried to make the story play out. She tried mommies groups, and found over all a bunch of exhausted, frustrated, adult-time-deprived women, often feeling that they are barely keeping it together, but that can’t admit that they might be having a hard time of it because, well, that’s how moms are supposed to be. And even there, she experienced several stunning examples of non-inclusion; of not being allowed to join certain groups, even that had friends in them, because the kids were a little different age, or were “full”, or when she went to join them, no-one else was there. Then there was the episode where she talked with a church leader of what we thought to be an open-minded and progressive church, about creating a “spiritual mothers group” and including mothers from other faiths in the gathering – the church had done community projects with Temples and Mosques before, so it seemed a natural fit. Somehow the inclusive intent of the group got shot down, when it was learned that they didn’t explicitly use “Jesus’s name” in a prayer.
A few thousand years ago, we would have lived in a small group or tribe. We would have lived intergenerationally, with grandparents and children, we would have been closer together in age (since life expectancies were low), and there would have been strong social bonds. That wasn’t happening for us.
So somewhere along the way, little bits of the “us that didn’t fit the mold” started to bubble to the top. We started to realize that our neighbors, while “fine people”, weren’t really social at all. They would wave as they drove past us, pulled in to their garage, and lowered the garage door before exciting the car, to avoid any danger of social interaction. They provided little support beyond occasional feeding the cat while we were away for a weekend, and asked little of us in return, even though we often offered. We found that the strip mall that we were so conveniently located near had no soul – it was just another cookie cutter mall, a Wal-Mart, a Vons, Payless shoes, Dollar Store, McDonalds, Starbucks, a cell phone place – it was the same cast of characters that is stuck into a thousand different but otherwise indistinguishable malls across our nation. If Dorothy had landed at that mall, she could to this day have been living under the illusion that she was, in fact, still in Kansas. So the concept of this supportive, interesting place to have a family wilted slowly over the years.
We talk a lot. We talk about our days, our dreams, our frustrations. More and more, we discussed the “what’s wrong with this picture”. Were we living in the wrong town? The wrong job? The wrong belief system? We wanted to find these people that actually wanted to be an integral part of our life – not just pleasant acquaintances, but people to live with, to wrap our lives up in. My sister lives in a Christian Community which has a community living arrangement, similar to the co-housing movement that we looked into. We visited a few of co-housing places in California, but wanted to broaden our search, see what else was out there. From childhood, my family had gone on these road trips most summers, spending several weeks to months wandering the states in our camper van. I wanted to relive this, with the intention of looking for an answer to a question that I couldn’t quite form.
A few years before, Barbara had had a terrible reaction to a prescription drug that she was on for a while; fortunately they figured out the problem before permenant damage was done, but it took several hospital visits, painful tests, and weeks of pain before it was resolved. She received an award from a class action law suit against the manufacturer of the drug, which it turned out hadn’t disclosed all the nasty side effects very well. The check allowed us to make this road trip to help find “the answer” a reality. It was the difference between having just enough cash to make our lives work, with a few weeks of vacation to recharge every year, to allowing us to go for 4 months on the road.
Those ensuing 4 months, are the beginning of this blog, but you see, only the middle of the story. We discovered many thing, saw many things, spent much time, energy, and intention along with most of the money doing this grand thing. And in the end, we came back to San Diego, deciding that it wasn’t about the town, as the community; not so much about the people, or the job, but how you weave it all together.
So instead of moving at that point, we branched out. We started our own co-housing meet up, which ran for over a year with little success, beyond meeting a few remarkable people. We made new friends in new circles, explored new communities, found new joys and passions. We discovered a community of creative, accepting souls in “The Burning Man” and similar groups, which has given us yet other great souls to add to our collection.
Finally, about a year and a half ago, upon returning from Burning Man, with all its grand acceptance and adventure, upon re-entry into our former community, we had several things happen over a short period of time that convinced Barbara that it was time to finally be done with that place, and find something else. We knew that we needed to have cash in hand so that we could make a bid that wasn’t contingent on the sale of our house, so Barbara contacted a great realtor, and just 5 days after listing, we had sold our house. The second place we looked at was this house – but we were just a little too late. Someone else put a bid in first. But, there was something about that place that just seemed “ours”, so we told the realtor to keep us in mind, just in case. Then, Barbara called in the psychic warfare squad… We never stooped to spells, or jinxes or hexes, but we had a number of people come by the property and “ground it with our energy”, “set the intention” that it is our, even a Thai healer came by a blessed the place for us in absentia. In the meantime, the “would be purchasers” mysteriously had no end of troubles, including a former partner of the then current owner that wouldn’t release claim, even though he was off the deed… So, we moved out of our house, put our stuff in a POD, and moved into the RV again, as per later blog posts. Eight weeks later, as hope was giving out, the initial would-be purchasers backed out, and we swooped in.
Which brings us to the next phase…
Well, since I don't really know of a particular time that I would consider the pivotal moment- a fulcrum in time that redirected our path, I can only weave in some large themes, to try to make sense of the last couple years of our life…
When Barbara and I met, we were in our late twenties, and our cultural clock was ticking. She was already the owner of a little condo on Utah St. in the Normal Heights area, and I, after having recently graduated from college, was living at home. Barbara’s condo was a cute little place, 2 bedrooms, with a house mate to help pay the rent, as well as friendship. It was in a “fair to midland” income area, with Lopez Market – a house converted to a farmers market with fruit bins made from an old wooden fence; a Soul Food joint that served on cheap paper plates on their back patio; a combined tattoo and guitar repair place; antique furniture stores and various bars and restaurants owned by individuals that still worked there. It was her place - she had made it happen on her own. To Barbara, it represented stability, safety, achievement, that she had arrived in a place of self-sufficiency and control.
Barbara was going back to school to get her Doctorate in Psychology. I was starting my career as an electrical engineer. We had a lot in common, really enjoyed each other, and fell in love… From there, we both got sucked into this vortex of societal expectations, and for a while, followed on cue.
There were forces at work that said that we were supposed to get married – that somehow being in love, and living together not only wasn’t enough, but was actually wrong... Somehow, going through this legal ritual legitimizes and purifies a couple in the eyes of society and church, so that even though we do the same things, and are really the same people as we were before the marriage, that now it’s all good. There is a magical hue cast on marriage, as if it transforms one into a different, better person. It goes so far in its “stage setup” that the woman is supposed to “change” her name – POOF! She’s obviously a different person, since that name wasn’t applied to her previously… But in contemplation, what is the intent of marriage really? It is a statement of love certainly – but so is handfasting and many other lovely rituals. It proclaims “this is it – the last person that you will ever need”, yet the “forsaking all others, until death do you part” clause is broken more often than not, as people in this mobile culture either divorce or find “another” (most often illicitly) – or both. From societies perspective, marriage it is a tidy way of defining how property changes hands, and who responsibility lands upon. But perhaps its largest effect is as a social “flywheel” – adding momentum to things, making it harder to stray from the course – for better or worse.
We are still married, and still glad to be married. But what it means to be married seems like it should be ours to define, not someone else. We have seen many friends divorce for various reasons. Sometimes they changed. Others probably shouldn’t have married in the first place. Some were too young to know what was “out there”. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t get married, but that something should be different – either on the inside, in terms of expectations, or perhaps the concept of marriage needs to change with the changing times. Should it take itself more lightly? More seriously? More rigid? More flexible? There are those that would argue any or all of those options. I do know that people change, and that saying you won’t change doesn’t stop it from happening.
A laundry list of other social expectations came to us next, including “get a bigger house”, “have a kid”, “get a nicer car”, etc., each of which we answered in time, in our own way. Some of them were really tied together in our minds for some reason. Conventional logic said that we needed a bigger house before we could have a kid, so we started planning. At that time, in the late ‘90s, the market was down a bit, and basically Barbara’s condo was worth what was owed on it. In retrospect, we should have kept it and rented it out, but for whatever reasons (20/20 hindsight not included) we didn’t. There are other stories there which I will leave untold for now – but suffice it to say, that we had heard these tales about how great suburbia was, and we drank the punch and walked away in a stupor.
With help, we were able to buy a “technically lovely” three bedroom house in Stonecrest. It was a great buy at the time. When we first moved in there were some fun people in our cul-di-sac which promised a social support system, it had great amenities – a “community center” with a pool, cooking classes, gym, close to a shopping center - a long list of reasons to love it, which for a while we did. We moved in with the help of friends - moving the stuff from the condo to new house (almost twice the size), left the third bedroom unused. So, soon we had friends move in with us – which in retrospect was some of the nicest times at the house. We settled into a new groove, as Barbara graduated with her Doctorate in Psychology, and took on several gigs including teaching at a community college, and clinical psychology.
After a while, this nagging “we’d better get going with having a kid” started to set in, since we were already mid-thirties, and I was born later in my parents life, so I had some worries about wanting our “would be child” to get to know them before they passed. Both of my parents had had bouts with cancer, and I knew that they wanted to see a grandchild from their union. From todays perspective, there are different memories and different weights to what happened along the way, but the facts are that about 8 years ago Barbara got pregnant with Delilah. It was a very difficult pregnancy for her, with at least 6 months of pretty continuous morning sickness. Even for that, she managed to keep her job until a month before Delilah was due.
People ask what it’s like to have a child. The best explanation that I’ve ever been able to come up with is “it amplifies life. It makes everything more.” More joyful, more complicated, more fun, more of a pain, everything takes longer and costs more, but it’s more satisfying. It changes everything. Everything takes planning now. The free-spirited quickly find their wings tied up with diapers and baby bottles, unless they are either fortunate enough to have some social support such as very local or live in family, or enough financial wherewithal to support a nanny. As with many, that wasn’t the case for us. Barbara chose to try the “stay at home mom” gig for a while (which honestly surprised me, but which I supported and deeply appreciated), and tried to make the story play out. She tried mommies groups, and found over all a bunch of exhausted, frustrated, adult-time-deprived women, often feeling that they are barely keeping it together, but that can’t admit that they might be having a hard time of it because, well, that’s how moms are supposed to be. And even there, she experienced several stunning examples of non-inclusion; of not being allowed to join certain groups, even that had friends in them, because the kids were a little different age, or were “full”, or when she went to join them, no-one else was there. Then there was the episode where she talked with a church leader of what we thought to be an open-minded and progressive church, about creating a “spiritual mothers group” and including mothers from other faiths in the gathering – the church had done community projects with Temples and Mosques before, so it seemed a natural fit. Somehow the inclusive intent of the group got shot down, when it was learned that they didn’t explicitly use “Jesus’s name” in a prayer.
A few thousand years ago, we would have lived in a small group or tribe. We would have lived intergenerationally, with grandparents and children, we would have been closer together in age (since life expectancies were low), and there would have been strong social bonds. That wasn’t happening for us.
So somewhere along the way, little bits of the “us that didn’t fit the mold” started to bubble to the top. We started to realize that our neighbors, while “fine people”, weren’t really social at all. They would wave as they drove past us, pulled in to their garage, and lowered the garage door before exciting the car, to avoid any danger of social interaction. They provided little support beyond occasional feeding the cat while we were away for a weekend, and asked little of us in return, even though we often offered. We found that the strip mall that we were so conveniently located near had no soul – it was just another cookie cutter mall, a Wal-Mart, a Vons, Payless shoes, Dollar Store, McDonalds, Starbucks, a cell phone place – it was the same cast of characters that is stuck into a thousand different but otherwise indistinguishable malls across our nation. If Dorothy had landed at that mall, she could to this day have been living under the illusion that she was, in fact, still in Kansas. So the concept of this supportive, interesting place to have a family wilted slowly over the years.
We talk a lot. We talk about our days, our dreams, our frustrations. More and more, we discussed the “what’s wrong with this picture”. Were we living in the wrong town? The wrong job? The wrong belief system? We wanted to find these people that actually wanted to be an integral part of our life – not just pleasant acquaintances, but people to live with, to wrap our lives up in. My sister lives in a Christian Community which has a community living arrangement, similar to the co-housing movement that we looked into. We visited a few of co-housing places in California, but wanted to broaden our search, see what else was out there. From childhood, my family had gone on these road trips most summers, spending several weeks to months wandering the states in our camper van. I wanted to relive this, with the intention of looking for an answer to a question that I couldn’t quite form.
A few years before, Barbara had had a terrible reaction to a prescription drug that she was on for a while; fortunately they figured out the problem before permenant damage was done, but it took several hospital visits, painful tests, and weeks of pain before it was resolved. She received an award from a class action law suit against the manufacturer of the drug, which it turned out hadn’t disclosed all the nasty side effects very well. The check allowed us to make this road trip to help find “the answer” a reality. It was the difference between having just enough cash to make our lives work, with a few weeks of vacation to recharge every year, to allowing us to go for 4 months on the road.
Those ensuing 4 months, are the beginning of this blog, but you see, only the middle of the story. We discovered many thing, saw many things, spent much time, energy, and intention along with most of the money doing this grand thing. And in the end, we came back to San Diego, deciding that it wasn’t about the town, as the community; not so much about the people, or the job, but how you weave it all together.
So instead of moving at that point, we branched out. We started our own co-housing meet up, which ran for over a year with little success, beyond meeting a few remarkable people. We made new friends in new circles, explored new communities, found new joys and passions. We discovered a community of creative, accepting souls in “The Burning Man” and similar groups, which has given us yet other great souls to add to our collection.
Finally, about a year and a half ago, upon returning from Burning Man, with all its grand acceptance and adventure, upon re-entry into our former community, we had several things happen over a short period of time that convinced Barbara that it was time to finally be done with that place, and find something else. We knew that we needed to have cash in hand so that we could make a bid that wasn’t contingent on the sale of our house, so Barbara contacted a great realtor, and just 5 days after listing, we had sold our house. The second place we looked at was this house – but we were just a little too late. Someone else put a bid in first. But, there was something about that place that just seemed “ours”, so we told the realtor to keep us in mind, just in case. Then, Barbara called in the psychic warfare squad… We never stooped to spells, or jinxes or hexes, but we had a number of people come by the property and “ground it with our energy”, “set the intention” that it is our, even a Thai healer came by a blessed the place for us in absentia. In the meantime, the “would be purchasers” mysteriously had no end of troubles, including a former partner of the then current owner that wouldn’t release claim, even though he was off the deed… So, we moved out of our house, put our stuff in a POD, and moved into the RV again, as per later blog posts. Eight weeks later, as hope was giving out, the initial would-be purchasers backed out, and we swooped in.
Which brings us to the next phase…
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Burning Man 2010
Well, somehow it has been yet another year. So many things have changed since last Burning Man. In fact, events surrounding Burning Man of last year were in many ways catalytic to our move, our new house, little pieces of life that have shifted into the new now. Burning man does that to you - it makes you think about things in a minute by minute basis - living in the now, this instant. Burning man isn't all about any one thing - it is a million remarkable instants linked together. That's regular life - "default life" by burner parlance - too, but we so often get locked in to the long term, the big "goals", we forget to breathe in this moment - the color of the paint on the wall, the simplicity of a reflection off the wood floor, little pieces of joy and wonder to be had all around us, if only we open up to them...
Ok, enough drivle - on with my Burning Man Report!
This year, my sister Suzie in Eugene and her family offered to watch Delilah for the week of Burning Man, which lead to also bringing our Mom up there, where they stayed for the week, then flew down to LA, where my brother Mark and his family picked them up for the night - and then, we brought them all hope. In the mean time, Barbara's mom house sat for us, and we had a jolly-old time wandering the Playa. I finally completed the drop off rounds last night about 9PM, and promptly went to sleep.
Ok, enough drivle - on with my Burning Man Report!
This year, my sister Suzie in Eugene and her family offered to watch Delilah for the week of Burning Man, which lead to also bringing our Mom up there, where they stayed for the week, then flew down to LA, where my brother Mark and his family picked them up for the night - and then, we brought them all hope. In the mean time, Barbara's mom house sat for us, and we had a jolly-old time wandering the Playa. I finally completed the drop off rounds last night about 9PM, and promptly went to sleep.
Driving up the Central Coast north of Santa Barbara. We did our standard wandering through San Luis Obispo on Thursday night for the Farmers Market, then continued up to Redding and Eugene. We had a remarkably nice drive - it was temperate, with almost no traffic to speak of.
From Eugene, we departed late Sunday night, with the intent of driving at least a few hours to get a head start on the otherwise long drive on Monday. Which led to the only "dark period" on the trip - the grumpy, didn't sleep well the night before, leading to the "We're out of gas" station at Gerlach (and the 3 hour wait therin), followed by another 4 hour wait in the line for the gates to reopen after a rain+dust=mud storm. But even a storm at Burning Man has a silver lining -
This one in the form of a double rain bow. Folks started pouring out of their cars to enjoy the moment - one pair of guys had to pee and I suggested that they go back to back and make a "third rainbow"... they weren't quite ready for that moment to happen :) The mud made for very interresting walking - it would cake in sucessive layers on your shoes and build up into "mushy platform shoes".
We made it in to camp late, and were able to meet up with Marietta and Bob (our regular camp mates - thank's for letting us copy some of your pictures! :) ) and set up our camp for the year - "Not Constantinople" at 7:00 and Istanbul.
Second night there, we had a get together with some other San Diego Burners at the Yellow Gorilla camp, and I took my accordion and played some ditties there to rave reviews...
A night time shot of the the Playa from The Temple.
One of the many art projects - the Playa Belle, constructed of welded stainless steel wire, a hollow structure, illuminated both inside and out. It took 4 man years to complete it...
One of the many Art Cars - a rolling picinic basket...
Burning Man is a Gift Economy - not technically even barter. You give stuff. Other people give stuff. This guy made a hot dog stand, and rolled it out on the Playa. On this day, he gave away over 200 hot dogs in the morning alone... Another great cart had S'Mores, with 4 gas burners to toast your own, and of course lots of bars. One Jazz club (a favorite from last year) did Sprite and Wine - sorta like a wine cooler of days of yore.
Another welded Stainless Steel art piece - a globe, which was actually 4 concentric globes nested inside of each other. In the distance and to the right you can see this years main temple - which was constructed to look like a Sand Stone meeting place of antiquity. They figured with this years "Metropolis" Theme, the would go non-structural. As my mom would say - "Interesting"...
An art tree on an alien structure of some sort...
Giant VW party bus...
And of course, the man.
A radial view out from one of the structures during the day.
And a little art that I did on Barbara's arm.
Fire Dancing...
Some highlights -
* A guy, pushing an Off Road Sequey that had run out of juice, being pushed back to camp. I say to the guy "I'm guessing it's more fun to ride than to push". He groans. I say "Look at it this way - you're paying it back for the love it gave you in hauling it around the Playa all day..." he sorta nodds...
* A gal wandering, saying to her friends "Hey guys, what's the plan?" I say to her "It's Burning Man- is there a plan?" to which she cracks up.
* A showing of Tantra Theater
* Dancing at a Kirtan Concert
* Interesting folks - a fireman from Boston, a artist from LA, a couple of people that we met at our dinner night - two Film students, one that used to work for Clinton for the World Bank.
* Fire dancing at Bass camp...
* Ein Hammer, art trees, great food, great people, wow...
* Ein Hammer, art trees, great food, great people, wow...
Enough for now!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Lightning In a Bottle (LIB) 2010
Some people say that the phrase "Lightning In a Bottle" comes from Fireflys, other say from Moonshine.
Either way, what it is to us is a festival of music, art, and eco-centric gathering. There was a one year hiatus last year, as they had to figure a new space. The new space is in Irvine - who knew that Irvine included rolling hills, a lake, and, yes, dust storms! It actually has feelings of Central Coast and bits of Burning Man.
It's its own thing though - everything is for sale (unlike burning man, where everything is gift based), lots of good organic, mostly vegitarian, often vegan food offerings (also expensive), and especially into the night, lots of live art (artists painting works right there), and really loud music. Really loud. Like several hundred yards from the nearest stage, and still too loud to sleep, thumping, making your chest rattle, and your teeth chatter, until way later than it seemed like they were supposed to.
Nicki went up with us, and slept in her little tent. We flew Delilah's kite, collected litter, Delilah found a horde of pincher bugs in her chair tube, which made her freak out, and we somehow managed to run out of both water and batteries in one weekend!
Still, all said, a fun event. We'll probabl skip next year, to recover some sleep, but probably return again "some day".
We also bought our Burning Man Tickets, and this week took the RV in to get it ready for the trip - only about 70 days before we depart! :)
Monday, May 24, 2010
Maker Faire 2010
Many people have asked what "Maker Faire" is - and what a "Maker" is.
I'd say that a "Maker" is someone that makes, modifies, fixes, improves or otherwise personalizes "stuff". They can be a poet, or an artist, or a tinkerer, a DIY fixer, someone that spins fire, model trainer, a green-thumber, knitter, handyman - anybody that invests their spirit in some effort or thing.
So a Maker Faire is an interesting place - it has a dash of the old county fair, with people showing off their stuff. A dash of funky-cool swap meet, with people selling their stuff (which may be special tools, or kits or parkas woven from recycled power cords...) A dash of "recruitment drive" - for all the folks with all the clubs or groups or concepts that are in need of zealots, or cash... A dash of environmentalism, save the world a bit a a time - wiht a big theme being "reduce, reuse" and only when all else fails, recycle.
Reuse for a maker might mean fixing something that is broken, and bringing it back to life. It may mean re-purposing something - turning an old nintendo case into a sound box for a 1 string guitar, or into a jewelry box. Or it might mean grinding it up to use for rocket fuel...
I've included some info for some of the various things you might see there, with links -
A couple of the large on line maker markets -
www.boingboingbazaar.com
www.etsy.com
A cool wiki based resource for on line manuals and info on how to fix stuff
So, years ago there was the "Basic Stamp" which was a simple hacker computer which was great for education, simple robotics, and other little stuff (I made an LED sorter with one). Now days, people talk about the Arduino which is based on the Atmel ATMEGA family - much larger memory, faster, blah, blah, blah... Many sources of stuff including:
www.liquidware.com
Lots of art and jewelry
www.surlyramics.com
There is a funny little "nerd community" called gravity.com, with folks talking about all sorts of things they love, including personally printed Electro Luminescent
www.gravity.com
A gal that writes poetry on demand - whom the poem in the previous blog was written for -
www.thepoetrystore.net
Microrax makes cool extruded mechanical elements for prototyping
www.Microrax.com
A favorite from previous Maker Fair, and Burning Man - the Neverwas Haul - an RV built from a Steam Tractor, with a Victorian House on top...
www.neverwashaul.com
And of course the Raygun Gothic Rocket Ship from last Burning Man was there in force - actually got to go up in side this time.
www.raygungothicrocket.com
A vintage clothing patern company -
www.decadesofstyle.com
Snail Art Car, Fire pits and cool electric light bulbs -
www.snailartcar.com
No Burning Man Friendly event would be complete without
www.utilikilts.com
Many engineering groups doing cools stuff -
www.heatsynclabs.org
www.longnow.org and their 10,000 year clock, and rosetta stone project to save world languages
Tool libraries - to, well, borrow tools of course!
borrowtools.org
massive servo motors - 1600 oz in of torque
www.invenscience.com
Folks working on OMAP3 based boards-
www.rationaledynamics.com
A funny rubbery adhesive stuff for padding, fixing, and tweaking stuff -
www.sugru.com
One of the "We will create your design" services offering many different materials, including acrylic, glass, and stainless steel -
www.shapeways.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)