2017 Word of the Year

Here we are, New Year's Eve and I am having a quiet evening at home, which is my preferred way to spend NYE. For me, this is a time of reflection and anticipation – looking backward and forward while sitting on the line between the old and the new. A friend will be coming over in a bit, but for now, I'm reconciling my budget, putting my house in order, reflecting on 2016 and my plans for 2017 and generally relaxing.

This past year has been a doozy. The election of Donald Trump, the too-soon deaths of many cultural icons (including my two biggest musical heroes, David Bowie and Prince), the continued degradation of our planet: pipelines, pesticides, extinctions, wars – it's no surprise that social media users are bandying about the hashtag #FU2016.

For me, 2016 had personal significance because of the work I orchestrated in The Crooked Wood – having a driveway installed and a shed built and moving my tiny house.

I feel like 2017 is going to be a gigantenormous year for me. Before the year is out I hope to have a septic system installed, a well drilled (or dug, I'm still not sure which), and a cabin built. I'm looking at about 5 or 6 times more work than last year. I'm feeling a bit anxious and overwhelmed at the thought. I only hope that things go as smoothly for these next phases as they did for the initial phase of the work.

Fortunately, once again this year, I was graced with the opportunity to join Jamie Ridler's wonderful "Planning Day/Design Your Year" workshop.

It was an awesome opportunity for me to think and plan ahead for the kind of year I'm hoping to create in 2017. It reminded me that I have many tools that I'm going to need for the work ahead – not least the ability to take deep breaths and roll with the punches. And learn. I'm certain I am going to learn a lot this year.

For the fourth year in a row, I've selected a word of the year. Keeping with my streak of R-words, this year's word is: Realization.

This is the year it happens. This is the year that all of my thoughts and yearnings for a home of my own become real.

It's going to take a lot of hard work, sacrifice and frugality, a lot of time and energy and money and love. I'm sure there will be tears and dark moments and difficult feelings.

And I am determined that it will get done. And that it will get done gently, kindly and with love.

That is my manifesto. Come on, 2017, I'm ready for you.

Seasonal Netflix recommendation

I don't usually do this, but I feel compelled to tell you about a show that's available on Netflix, especially if you're looking for some deep, darkly-funny entertainment over the holidays.

The show is called Please Like Me. It's a billed as a "comedy drama" series, but I would describe it as a sitragicom – a situation tragicomedy.

I first saw the show a few years ago when it appeared briefly as a summer fill-in show on CBC. I got hooked. CBC only showed Series 1 and 2, so after those were done I had to hunt down the episodes in Series 3 on sites like YouTube and DailyMotion (usually with terrible sound and image quality).

This fall, Series 1-3 became available on Netflix and I watched all of the episodes again.

The show is centred around a young man named Josh and his friends and family.

At first glance, the show is about Josh coming out and learning how to navigate the world and his sexual territory.

Josh and his best friend Tom seem feckless and insecure. Their friend (and Josh's former girlfriend) Claire is pretty and clever. They are all under-employed and mostly broke and obsessed with things that seem completely trivial.

It could be that show. But the young-people-learning-adulting-through-their-hilarious-experiences premise is basically a cover for a show that is dedicated to a fierce and tender exploration of how people struggle with their mental health and what that experience is like for them and for the people who love them.

Josh's mom, Rose, has bipolar disorder. In the first episode of Series 1, Rose tries to kill herself. Not for the last time, either. Rose spends time in a private psychiatric hospital, where she meets Hannah, Stewart and Ginger. Josh's main love interest, Arnold has a severe anxiety disorder and also spends time at the hospital.

There are so many poignant, funny lines, I can't even begin to tell you about them. The show is hilarious and sly and playful and painful and sad and thought-provoking. There is death and love and and hope and disappointment.

When Josh's dad, Alan (who is just as feckless and insecure as his son) says that he's always felt a bit hopeless as a dad, Josh replies, "Well, you are. I mean, we're all hopeless. I'm hopeless. Arnold's hopeless. Tom, Tom is hopeless."

There are 26 half-hour episodes on Netflix, so if you start binge watching now, you could very easily come up to the fraught and funny Christmas-themed finale of Series 3 at some point on Christmas day.

Warnings: this show contains explicit sexuality, "bad" language, abortion, chicken murder, food porn, lip-syncing, ferris wheels, babies, self-harm, suicide attempts and Australian accents, so if you are not okay with any of those things, this is not the show for you.

Winter Solstice 2016

Solstice today – the shortest day of the year and the turning point to longer days ahead (for those of us in the Northern hemisphere, that is). Solstices and equinoxes feel like a big deal around these parts – I can guarantee you that there will be many bonfires roaring tonight in rural Nova Scotia.

I had my solstice fun last night and into the early hours of this morning – a thai food feast with friends, complete with stories, laughter, wood stove warmth, general snuggling and several experiments to determine how many large dogs and people could fit on one loveseat at one time.

In contrast, this evening is a quiet one for me. An introspective evening at home with Knitflix and Salinger.

Around sunset today, I went out and took some photos of Lunenburg Harbour. It was a beautiful evening, plus 3 degrees Celsius, pink light – very, very pretty and calm.

Lunenburg, NS – viewed across the harbour, solstice sunset

Ducks in the harbour

As I walked and admired the view, I was thinking about agape and philia. (I fear J.D. Salinger would have labelled my mood today as an "oppressively-deep" one*).

Agape, philia, storge and eros are four types of love that were described by ancient Greek philosophers. Storge is familial love – the natural love between parents, children, siblings, etc. Agape is divine love, the love God feels for humans and humans for God. Myself, I feel the divine in the world, and so agape is how I label the wonder, delight and peace I feel in connection with, for example, trees in general, The Crooked Wood, the pink glow this evening, the beaches, the starry sky last night, etc.

The (snow-covered) Crooked Wood – December 18, 2016

I am thinking about philia today particularly because of the dinner party I enjoyed last night – I was the only single person at a dinner party with 4 pair-bonded sets of folks. It can be easy to feel left out and at odds in a situation like that, yet I did not – I felt very beloved and included. Eros (erotic love) is on hiatus in my life – paused for a long stretch of heart-healing work and to give space to the processes and energies of peri-menopause. Particularly in its absence, I feel very conscious that I am graced by the love that I share with my friends and in my community.

To quote the entry on philia from Wikipedia: "In his Rhetoric, Aristotle defines the activity involved in philia (τὸ φιλεῖν) as:

'wanting for someone what one thinks good, for [their] sake and not for one's own, and being inclined, so far as one can, to do such things for [them]' (1380b36–1381a2)" (Emphasis mine).

I feel blessed with people in my life who have so much of this kind of heart generosity, who go out of their way to share meals, make plans for fun activities, stay in touch and let me know that I am loved, valued and not alone. And I am grateful for the impulses in my own heart that cause me to offer lifts, do favours, cook meals, join in the fun and give and receive hugs with my whole heart.

The beauty of a chainsawed love letter, received December 9, 2016

There are some pieces in me that feel badly broken. And there is much of me that feels whole. And in my best moments, I feel deeply grateful for all of it. 

 

And then of course there is Salinger. Who, while presumably knowing nothing of agape or philia, graciously forgives me for leaving him to go hang out with my friends. And purrs at me when I come home (as long as I feed him ;).

Salinger – cozy in our winter digs
("Make with the kibbles, Lady."

If you are in the Northern hemisphere on this day of least light, I hope you feel loved and fully awake to the knowledge that the earth is turning back toward the sun. Wherever you are, if you want hearts to shine on you, remember the description of philia – selfless acts for the good of others, because you wish them well – and make philia happen wherever and whenever you can.

*Referencing Franny and Zooey as usual: “Last month, Dean Sheeter (whose name usually transports Franny when I mention it) approached me with his gracious smile and bull whip, and I am now lecturing to the faculty, their wives, and a few oppressively-deep type undergraduates every Friday on Zen and Mahayana Buddhism. A feat, I haven’t a doubt, that will eventually earn me the Eastern Philosophy Chair in Hell.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey

Seasonal #banjoy

I'm not a huge fan of this time of year.

Which means that #banjoy is more welcome to me than ever.

Here is a beautiful song written and performed by my friend Craig Werth.

I hope you will enjoy listening to it:

Battening down the hatches

I've been down with a bad flu for over a week. Before that, I took a random road trip to Montreal for a week to visit some long-missed family members. But before that, I tackled the job of getting my tiny home ready for the winter. And now that I'm sick at home, what better time to catch up with a blog post about it?

There were a number of tasks that needed to be accomplished. My two major tasks had to do with the shed – I needed to paint the trim and I needed to close in the "eaves" of the shed. 

This required a lot of work on a ladder. My shed is high – due to some geological limitations on how deep the footings could be installed – and so I had no choice but to make use of the ladder my stepdad kindly gave me (along with all of the materials and tools I needed to close in the eaves – :). 

The last time I used a ladder higher than a step-ladder was in 2007. It was the first time in my life that I had a phobic reaction to something. About two-thirds of the way up the ladder to the roof of the house I owned with my then-partner, I froze, irrationally terrified and quite certain that I was about to die. I forced myself up to the top. Once up on the flat roof, I felt fine. But getting down the ladder again was not fun. 

So, I approached this ladder work with trepidation. Fortunately, I did not have a repeat of my past phobia. Over time, I even got comfortable with being on a ladder again. Still, I hope that my house can be built a little lower than the shed so that future ladder work can be kept to a minimum.

The shed with trim painted.

Hardware cloth cut to cover the gap at the top of the shed

Hardware cloth getting bent into shape

The eaves closed in using hardware cloth – with very inexpertly applied staples...

The next major job was to empty my tiny home of food (and anything else that might freeze). My house feels bereft with all of the things I need for daily life – clothes, food, computer, etc – removed from it.

Toward the end of the summer, I was starting to experience some pretty major issues with condensation inside my house. But since I am no longer there as a source of water vapour, the house has dried out nicely. It smells of pinewood when I visit – such an alluring scent.

My much-tidier-than-usual tiny home

I find my land breathtaking in its beauty at this time of year. When I go to visit, I find myself lingering in the peace and freshness I find there. I can hardly tear myself away.

One golden tamarack

Some mushrooms are autumn's tulips

But central heating is a thing – and I know that I am not up for trying to fight moisture and cold in my tiny house over the winter.

And so, I continue trying to figure out whether I can build a small winterized cabin there next year. More on that to come.

Second last move?

Here it is, October 9. Thanksgiving weekend. 

And it's the end of my summer here in The Crooked Wood.  

Fall colours are just starting to kiss the tips of the trees in The Crooked Wood

I've been slowly moving to my winter accommodations in Lunenburg. I moved the big stuff (my small chest freezer, my bicycle) on Friday with help from one of my cousins and with my folks' pickup truck.

I feel really sad about leaving this place. I wish I could stay, but I know that Wholehearted House and I are just not up for living through a winter together. Already, the cold nights are causing condensation problems. I know I don't want to do the work that I would need to do to stay here and be warm and dry through the winter, nor do I want to pay for the renovations that would be necessary to make this a year-round dwelling. It is a perfect summer retreat, but believe that trying to make it into something it is not designed for will be a waste of money and will probably cause long-term damage.

While I know that my winter accommodations will be comfortable and fun, I still feel really sad, which several kind friends have pointed out is a good thing – because it shows how much I love it here and how much I feel like I belong to this place.

So, I've been letting myself feel sad and soft and vulnerable and treasuring my last days here for 2016.

Sal and I have been spending lots of time cuddling during the cool nights and mornings

I've walked around The Crooked Wood many times over the past few days – partly in search of mushrooms, which have finally gotten enough rain to be able to bloom – and partly in simple appreciation, finding countless little beauty spots to take with me while I am away:

"Nature decorates so beautifully!" as a friend commented when I posted this photo to social media.

Pretty mushroom! Probably a Purple Cort, according to my mushroom-identifying friends.

Salinger loves to come with me on walks. He climbs way up in the trees.

I have to say goodbye to my garden, too. It's been a challenging year for gardening because of the lack of rain. But I haven't had a killing frost yet, so my tomatoes are still ripening on the vine and my potato tops are still lush and green. The little bit of rain we have had has helped a bit.

My hugelkultur mound in July

My hugelkultur mound in October

My raised bed in July

My raised bed in October

I am feeling very motivated to make sure that I can build a year-round dwelling here next year. I feel quite overwhelmed at the thought of designing a space and corralling enough money to make that happen. But the thought that I could move back here next spring and never move again (unless I choose to), is a very compelling thought. Yes, I will be very happy if this is my second-last move. Ever.

I have this beautiful mini garden of forest mosses and lichens that my friend Kristina made. My mom bought it for me at the Lahave Craft Co-op this summer. I feel like this garden is a way to keep The Crooked Wood with me through the winter. That feels like a great blessing – to have a reminder of what is here waiting for me.

A perfectly communicable little vision of truth (parking-lot division)

A couple of weeks ago, I drove to the airport to pick up a friend who was flying in from Toronto for a visit. And since I was going there anyway, I offered to transport one of my favourite ride share pals from the south shore to catch an earlier flight out. A much, much earlier flight.

That was no big deal. I'm often awake by 4am anyway, so deciding to get up just a little earlier to help a friend catch a flight (and save some carbon) was a no brainer. What it did mean, though, was that I had a lot of time to kill in the city between the early flight and the later one. It was a good opportunity to do my once-yearly Halifax errands, but because the first flight was so early, there were several hours when nothing was open yet.

I decided I would find a quiet parking lot and settle down and try to recoup a few zzzzs. I had a pillow and a blanket, so I tipped the passenger seat all the way back, got as comfy as I could and tried to snooze.

I was tired, but I couldn't fall asleep. Instead, I sat there, thinking.

What I thought about was vulnerability.

I've been thinking about vulnerability a lot lately – in the context of privilege and racialization (inspired by articles like this one), in the context of global peace and conflict, in the context of interpersonal relationships.

But I have been avoiding thinking about vulnerability in terms of me. I have a life-long habit of trying to keep my vulnerability at arms-length by looking at it through a telescope, at the safe distance of theory.

Sitting in that parking lot, I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly sinking deep, deep, deep into my own vulnerability – acknowledging how easily hurt I am, and how frightened I feel of intimacy and rejection, of humiliation and shame, of saying or doing the "wrong" thing and getting laughed at or called out.

You call that a spiritual epiphany?

I posted on social media (the best way to share how you're feeling at 5am without disturbing anyone who isn't already awake) that I thought I had had a spiritual epiphany.

That might seem like a pretty grand way to describe getting weepy in a parking lot, but that's how it felt.

It's not that I'd never felt vulnerable before, it's that I'd never felt open to feeling vulnerable before.

Always before, feeling vulnerable has felt like I'm about to fly into a million pieces, like my very survival is hanging in the balance. And that feeling is often followed by me lashing out against the person, thought or event that has stirred up my vulnerability, whether internal or external, by saying or thinking something really intolerant. 

But in that parking lot, I sat and felt vulnerable, and I found that I could tolerate it. I felt relaxed and open in a way I haven't ever felt before. I felt sad, sure. And scared. And sad. (Like, really, really, really sad.)

As Franny Glass says in Franny and Zooey (my favourite book and the one from which I stole the title of this blog post*), "I just never felt so fantastically rocky in my entire life." The fantastic part was that I didn't feel like I was going to disintegrate and I didn't flip the channel to anger or donuts or something else, anything else, to try to escape feeling vulnerable.

Micro/Macro

That felt monumental to me. My difficulties with bearing vulnerability have been the source of a lot of unhappiness in my life. My fear of vulnerability has often kept my heart closed. And while I've gotten pretty good at keeping my vulnerability shut down, when the pressure becomes too much to bear, I have at times been prompted me to say terrible things or hold hateful attitudes toward other people, things or experiences, as a way of comforting myself and giving myself some relief from my terror of my own vulnerability.

This has had the unfortunate result of increasing the level of disconnection in my life. Which in turn makes me feel more afraid of being vulnerable.

I think I can see that same dynamic playing out in our culture at large. We have vilified vulnerability. We have made it shameful to need help, to struggle, to show weakness or even tenderness. We have divided ourselves from one another in little silos of apparent strength.

Disconnection flourishes and the solutions presented are: more stuff, more entertainment, more distractions.

It seems to me that all that buried vulnerability is pressure cooking away at both a personal and cultural level, bubbling up as selfishness, narcissism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, rape, violence, class conflict, ethnic conflict, war, genocide, etc.

No one wants to blink first.

We're scared of what might happen if we do.

We have been taught to expect that other people will reject, judge and/or exploit our vulnerability. We have been taught that help will not be available. Sometimes that is the way it is. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Hope

For a couple of weeks now, I've been grappling with all of this. Accessing my vulnerability in that parking lot felt liberating. Trying to maintain access to it has been uncomfortable, to say the least. And not very successful, either. I've shut myself down more times than a hospital ward with chronic C. difficile. Then this weekend, I was at the West Dublin Market, hanging out with many friends and loved ones.

A dear friend I hadn't seen in a few weeks gave me a hug and suggested we hang on for a few extra breaths in each others arms.

There, there it was. That little catch and shudder through my chest, back and shoulders, the release of feeling safe in the arms of someone who loves me and is not afraid to hold me and all of my fault lines.

It's in moments like that one that I think there's hope that more of us, more of the time, can learn to celebrate our own and others' vulnerability and hold ourselves and each other in it. These are the moments that liberate us. I encourage you to seek them out and to help create them for others.

*The original line I adapted for my title is "...a perfectly communicable little vision of truth (lamb-chop division)"

A walk down to Beaver Town

With the arrival of fall, it's getting a bit brisk here in the Crooked Wood. Since moving Wholehearted House this spring, I have not set the woodstove back up or unwrapped the chimney that was covered in plastic and tuck tape a year ago. Although cooking on the propane stove is a source of warmth, it isn't very efficient to use it to try to heat my whole house.

I'll be moving to my winter accommodations soon, but I'm loathe to leave the peace and quiet of this place (even though I know my winter housemate and I have lots of good times ahead – many wonderful meals, cribbage games and conversations).

Still, for a couple more weeks, I'm toughing out the chilly nights and treasuring my solitude. In the battle against the chill, I have many tools: hot tea and soup, blankets, my beloved slanket, hoodies, layering, long underwear, hats, car drives with the heater going full blast, visits to the homes of friends and family, warm public refuges like the library and movie theatre, hot flashes and most effective of all, exercise.

Today, I knew I needed to get my blood moving and decided to go for a walk, ostensibly to look for mushrooms, even though the weather has been so dry that I knew the chance of finding any was probably nil (and I was right about that).

Even though I've lived here all summer, I haven't explored my land very thoroughly. For the most part, I stick to the area bounded by my house, garden, shed, clothesline and compost heap.

Here is a photo of the edge of the clearing made on my land. Most of my land looks like this: tall trees, with lots of standing and fallen dead wood.

Today, I decided to set out to explore the less traveled parts of my land. It's only three acres (which is about the size of three professional soccer fields), so I figured it wouldn't take very long. Salinger decided he would come with me.

Salinger, showing off his tree-climbing skills on our walk today.

The Crooked Wood is roughly rectangular. It has about 150 feet that front the road and then goes back about three times that distance with (more or less) straight sides. The line at the back of my property is a jagged line, because that boundary is created by a little stream called the Kissing Brook (also known as the Line Brook to the less lyrical.)

The Kissing Brook at the end of a long, dry summer.

I hadn't been right up to the edge of the brook before today because in usual conditions, there is a large area of swampy wetland surrounding the brook itself: the sort of boot-swallowing expanse of stinky mud that is very difficult to navigate. In fact, before today, I thought the swamp was the brook. But with the very dry weather we've had this summer, the swamp is much easier to maneuver, so I was able to explore the whole area and discover that the brook has a distinct shape, separate from the swamp around it.

Obviously, the land around the brook didn't used to be swampy; the trees that grew on its banks haven't survived the wetter conditions and are mostly standing dead.

I had heard from my neighbours that there are beavers living in the Kissing Brook, and indeed, there were signs of them everywhere. Salinger was unusually vocal around the beaver dam – as if he was trying to make sure I was aware of the proximity of some very large rodents. I wonder if he has had nocturnal run-ins with them?

Busy beavers!

Interrupted half-way through the task?

What did you use to cut that down with – a beaver?

Home sweet beaver home

The back of the main dam is on the right in this photo. There is a very orderly pile of sticks on the left. Is it the beaver equivalent of a lumber yard?

The main dam can be seen from my land, but it is actually located slightly past my property line on land belonging to of one of my neighbours.

Uprooted trees decorate the banks of the brook

Fallen trees make handy shortcuts for Salinger

I had to laugh at myself – I got disoriented on three separate occasions during my walk. Because of the steep slope that drops down to the swamp, my home and those of my neighbours are not visible from the brook. With only the winding water as a reference point, I was trying to cross my land from side to side but twice I got turned around and ended up back at the same property line from which I had started! Finally, I walked back up into the inhabited portion of my land and crossed to the other property line, then walked down it and traveled from that side over to the other.

The third time I got disoriented was when I saw this marker – I thought it was the property line, but it's not. I can't think what it marks, it seems completely random...

The vegetation by the brook is very different than in the wooded portion of my land. Under the tall trees there are mosses, ferns and lichens as well as many of the sweet, little, woodland flowers that I love. Since the trees by the brook are dead or dying, there is a lot more sunshine down there and the plants are mostly grasses, reeds and burrs. Here is a photo of some asters (which always remind me of my Nana <3) – as well as some very thirsty grass.

I learned many things on my walk today. My land goes back further than I thought and there is a variety to it that I hadn't examined before. And while I didn't meet any of my beaver neighbours, I did get a sense of their habitat – and their industry. Apart from the occasional mushroom hunt, I plan to leave them alone to beaver away at their lives in peace.

After today, I feel motivated to become more familiar with this piece of land. I want to be able to recognize every inch and have landmarks that will tell me where I am at all times. I want to see it change through the seasons and the years ahead. I predict that there will be many more walks through The Crooked Wood.

Turning the corner

It was forecast to go down to 8 degrees Celsius last night. And judging from the temperature this morning, I believe it did.

But, I stayed comfortable despite my lack of a heat source. Last night, I gathered all of the blankets that I had taken off my bed about 6 weeks ago and spread them back on top. I closed all of the windows - except for Salinger's back door - and all of the skylights.

There was something very cozy about cuddling back under all of my blankets last night. And something even cozier about waking up this morning and staying in bed for a bit before getting up to make a hot cup of tea to drink in the brisk morning air. There is so much love and safety, as well as warmth, stored up in these blankets.

Left to right: "Nana's Ocean" (the quilt I completed for my grandmother in 2001), the quilt made for me by the mom of my best friend in grade 8, and "My Favourite Mistakes" (the first bed-sized quilt I ever completed, started in 1998 and completed in 2000). 

The forecast says it's going to go back to being 17 overnight for most of the next 10 days. So this was only a forerunner. But, along with the ever-shortening days, it's a warning that my time here for this summer is drawing to a close.

That's a melancholy feeling. My sweet, happy, quiet, mostly solitary, summer in the woods is almost over. In a month or so, I'll be moving back into my winter digs in town. 

I feel determined to build a winterized cabin here next summer so that next year I can stay. I'm not sure how I'm going to manage to do that. But then, I wasn't sure how I was going to manage to get my house moved or power and high speed internet hooked up this summer and it all came together, with the help of many friends and friendly professionals - so I'm sure I'll figure all of the necessary steps out somehow - and receive all of the help I will need!

Random Banjoy – Joe Dassin

A friend and colleague put me on to listening to Joe Dassin while he and I collaborate on typesetting a bunch of French financial reports.

While listening to a 50-song YouTube playlist this morning, I came across this one – with #banjoy.

Had to share:

Mindfulness and Meteor Showers

Every year I get excited about the Perseids meteor shower – and then it's overcast or there's a full moon or I forget about it or I can't be bothered to get up in the middle of the night and go look.

This year, it felt important to me not to miss them. I read that while they peak around August 11–12, the light from the waxing moon may interfere with viewing this year. So I decided to make some time to view them before their official peak.

Tucked away in the woods, my view of the sky is somewhat limited, so I asked a friend who has a glorious hill behind her house if she would mind if I drove up to the top in the early morning to do some star-gazing. She gladly welcomed me to share her skyscape.

Staying up late is not my preference, so instead, I got up early.

I drove in the dark up the dirt road leading to her hilltop, the long grass in the middle of the road pinging against the bottom of my car. At the top, it was brisk, but not too brisk. Breezy, but not too breezy. Extremely clear. I was on the late edge for viewing (after 4am, with the sun already starting to lighten the east), but the moon had set and most of the sky was still very dark. I saw seven meteors in about 20 minutes, with the two brightest just before I left to come back home and start working.

As I stood there (I had forgotten to bring a blanket to lie down on), I thought about how magical it is to watch shooting stars. Calm, with happy surprises.

Calm can be a tricky place. It can be easy to slip from calm into the stories we tell ourselves to keep our brains busy. I don't know about you, but some of the narratives I spin about my life are not very pleasant ones. A few times while I was star gazing this morning, my mind drifted off to think about difficult things: work and personal relationships that are troubling me, the book that I'm reading about trauma (The Body Keeps the Score) that is stirring up many upsetting feelings. Each time my mind strayed – Whoosh – shooting star! And each time, I felt a surprised and delighted smile sweep my face, hustling my anxious, hamster-wheel thoughts out of the spotlight.

It strikes me that "calm with happy surprises" might be the optimal state for human life.

Calm without any surprises is boring. From there we often slip into old scripts: catastrophes, anxieties, dramas, anything to make things interesting and give us an illusion of control. Never calm, (i.e. continually stressed) is a brutal way to live. And mostly calm with unhappy surprises, with that slammed from out-of-the-blue feeling, is definitely not optimal.

I have a lot of calm in my life right now. I need it and I'm grateful for it.

I'm reminded this morning to seek out and appreciate happy surprises too.

I had one last Friday, when some friends dropped by and invited me to join them for supper and a few hands of gin rummy.

And come to think of it, I had another happy surprise a few weeks ago, when some friends were home for a visit and spent an evening reminding me how to play Slay the Demon – a game I find deeply meditative and sweetly surprising. And of course, some visits with my favourite young people this summer have been spontaneous and full of in-the-moment sandcastle-building and wave-jumping. And some heart-to-hearts with friends have taken me to that same "brain-lit-up-in-connection" good place.

Waves are happy surprises. So are smiles and hugs. So are friends dropping by. So is dancing. So is breaking out into song. So is the High-5 burger at the Hebbville Tastee Freeze.

I'm reminded to cultivate and/or appreciate happy surprise interruptions to my long hours of work and the dark thoughts that sometimes take over my mind while my hands are busy typesetting.

When you wish upon a star...

Lost and Found

Salinger seems to be quite content here in the Crooked Wood.

He has forsaken his winter hobbies of knee-nibbling and paper-tearing/chewing and taken up a hearty interest in rodent butchery. The game is plentiful.

At first, the carcasses were being left in the driveway, but this week, Salinger began to bring his offerings inside. One morning, I stepped on both a disembodied mouse face and an internal organ of some description. Another morning I chucked out a squirrel tail and one rear haunch.

Salinger's new hobby has led to a few misunderstandings between us. I suppose it's understandable that he would have hurt feelings when I "ew" and "ick" loudly over his wonderful trophies.

The other night, I got home late and heard him come in with a prize around 3am (I'm sure he has been doing this regularly, but I have happily slept through earlier instances of this behaviour).

What I heard was th-thump, as he came in through his "back door" (an open window with a torn screen).

Then, rustle.

Rustle, rustle.

Squeak.

Rustle, rustle, rustle, rustle.

Squeak.

Rustle.

Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.

Yuck.

Yesterday, Salinger brought a live mouse into the house and let it get away. Saving it for later, no doubt. It has been living under my arm chair ever since.

Last night, the mouse came out to explore.

Rustle, rustle, rustle.

I imagined it running over my face and got a bad case of the shudders.

And where was Salinger? Why was he not dispatching this little nuisance which he had inflicted upon me.

No sign of Sal.

Around 8pm yesterday, I walked to my mailbox about 1km away, and Salinger walked part of the way with me. At the limits of his territory, he peeled off to engage in other pursuits. I thought I would pick him back up on the way home, but though I called, he did not come. The neighbours' dog was out, so maybe that was enough to make Salinger too shy to show himself.

I came home alone. All night and all of this morning, no sign of Salinger. Around 11am, I decided to walk over to the mailbox again, calling to Sal along the way. About half way there, I heard a plaintive "mew". There was Salinger, uninjured, but either lost or too scared to make his way back home.

We had a typical, belly-rubby reunion and then I encouraged him to follow me home. Fortunately, the neighbouring dog was not outdoors, but Sal still crossed to the other side of the road when we went past his house. Finally we arrived at the refuge of our own driveway though Salinger remained uncharacteristically cautious.

But by the time we were back at the house, he seemed to relax and was very happy to have a snack and then head outside to bask in the sun.

I'm glad I went out to shepherd him back home.

Maybe at some point today he'll find that darn mouse under the arm chair and kill it, preferably after escorting it back outside.

An uncharacteristically sober portrait of Salinger, with his tail down low, rather than waving at its usual jaunty angle.

Set up! (A tiny home/land development report)

Well, well, well.

Here we are.

Yesterday morning, Eastlink came and connected my Internet. And now I am comfortably geared up here until October.

The Internet hook-up was the stickiest piece of this whole process! It required FOUR separate calls to Eastlink. TWO of them were required to try to sort out the mess made on the first call. And I had two separate technician visits. It required a bit of patience, but we got there in the end. 

I am proud and happy to announce the end of Phase 1 of this project. Seven and half weeks to get from a space cleared out among the trees to home, garden, shed, civic address, mail delivery, electricity and high-speed Internet. I am pretty impressed with everyone I've worked with to make this happen (except for that first – #facepalm – contact at Eastlink). I have been blessed with professional, efficient, respectful and pleasant people working on this project. 

I feel very happy to be settled for the rest of the summer, without any more major projects needing to be undertaken on my land. My main focus now is to buckle down and work hard at my computer to save up for Phase 2. There is a slight chance that I might decide to dig a well this summer, but for now, I continue to be grateful for my water-sharing neighbours, friends and family members.

My folks have given me a small chest freezer to put in my shed which means I can easily make ice to keep my cooler cool, and I have longer term food storage – between the freezer, my garden, electricity and Internet access, I won't need to go into town as frequently.

Essentially, I am content. Deeply content. And so is Salinger, who is contemptuously licking one of his back legs as I write this (he is cold-shouldering me because I did not respond with glee to stepping on a disembodied rodent face in the house this morning).

This is probably my last tiny home update for a while (except for some possible garden updates through the summer). Stay tuned for writing on other topics.

My first (real) foray into gardening

I love the idea of gardening.

What's not to love? Being attuned to nature, being active outdoors, raising the most local food possible, saving money, saving the earth, knowing where one's food came from and how it was grown – gardening seems like a no-brainer for everyone who has enough energy and enough space to do it.

In practice, my past attempts at gardening have not been very successful. It has varied a bit, depending on where I have been at it my own life and heart, but on the whole, my thumb is not green. At times, I have felt sorry for the plants that came into my life. I remember being given some "Lucky Bamboo" once as a house-warming present in Toronto and thinking, "No, this bamboo is not lucky. It is Unlucky Bamboo." And sure enough, a couple of months later, it was dead. Many of the plants that have come into my life have suffered from a combination of neglect and over-compensation. Many have perished.

As a result, though I grew up in a gardening family, I have not had a garden of my own for many years.

Sure, back when I was a yuppie, I had a backyard that the previous owner had had professionally landscaped. It occasionally warranted a little desultory pruning, but that hardly counts as gardening and those were ornamentals - and those don't count for me - at all.

Over the years, I've had a number of failed attempts at vegetable gardening – some things in containers at various urban apartments, and one summer since I moved home I was invited to grow a few things in my folks' garden – 45 km away. Not too surprisingly, much neglect (and good-natured ribbing) ensued.

I find it difficult to pay attention to a garden. The shriveled tomato plants and dried up herb gardens of my past haunt me, mournfully waving their reproachful brown leaves at me.

But, I love the idea of gardening. And I especially love the idea of gardening here, in the Crooked Wood. So this spring, as you may have already read, I got help from a friend to build a hugelkultur bed and my folks gave me a raised bed kit and away I went.

So far, things are going well. I planted a few things from seed: peas, beans, spinach. The spinach didn't take, but the peas and beans are thriving: 

Peas and beans – June 22

Peas and beans – July 3

The onions and potatoes are doing well, too. Some tomato and leek starts that my pops gave me out of his greenhouse are adjusting more slowly.

Potatoes, onions, leeks and tomatoes – June 22

Potatoes, onions, leeks and tomatoes – July 3

I also got some starts from some other local sources – a few from Stewart Hebb's, some from the Village Nursery and some from the West Dublin Market: Zucchini, arugula, mesclun mix, butternut squash and a few herbs. Interestingly, two tomato plants that I didn't have room for in the raised bed and put in the hugelkultur bed are now twice the size of their compatriots. I'm not sure if this is because they are getting more sun, or if they have more room for their roots, or if the hugelkultur mound retains more moisture in the dry conditions we've been having (which may or may not be because it got well mulched with seaweed and the raised bed did not. I ran out of seaweed – I will need to get a much bigger load next spring). 

Mixed greens, squash, tomatoes and herbs – July 3

Salinger enjoys the garden, too, and often hangs out with me while I'm working there – and gets all nice and schmutzy, rolling in the dirt.

Mmmm, schmutz!

I started small with my garden this year. With so many unsuccessful past attempts, I didn't want to set myself up for failure and disappointment. I think that was a good decision, especially with all of the dry weather we are having this spring – without running water here, keeping the two beds I have moist is enough of a challenge for me.

I think it's fair to say that I'm appreciating this experiment so far. I enjoy having tasks like, "Hill potatoes" on my to-do list. I expect I will have my first home-grown salad today. A garden is a perfect complement to a life with limited refrigeration. It's also great for a person living alone – I can pick things as I need them. I won't have any more big bags of purchased greens going partly to waste because I can't eat through them quickly enough.

And, since the garden is right outside my window, it's difficult for me to forget about it or neglect it. So far, at least.

Since things seem to be going well, I've started making plans to expand my garden next year. My Amazing Friend dropped off a gift of horse manure the other day and I have constructed two more hugelkultur beds (which I will drape with black tarps – on the advice of my friend Jude – to kill any weed/grass seeds in the manure and help it compost thoroughly before next year).

Next year, I want to grow broccoli and cabbage and bok choy and perhaps I will make another, deeper raised bed for some root veggies like beets and carrots. And some more potatoes. I only have a few blue fingerling potatoes planted this year; next year I would like to have more variety.

One of two new hugelkultur beds being prepared for next year. Next spring they will be topped with soil mix and seaweed and will be good to go.

One of the most enjoyable things about this gardening experiment for me is learning. I feel curious to find out what does well where. And I love the thought that I will have the opportunity to try different things in subsequent years – to test and assess and change and develop. 

Hopefully, I will build a gardening habit and gain some skills that have eluded me in the past. Now, if I could get get curious about organizing and tidying...

Electrictiy and Internet (A tiny home/land development report)

On Tuesday, I was working in my office in Bridgewater when I was tagged on facebook in a post made by my Most Awesome Neighbour saying that there was a lot going on at my land.

What! Gasp! The power company!!! Hooking me up!!!

Amazing.

I had not been given a heads-up call the day before so I had no idea. I wrapped up my work as quickly as I could and headed home, where I chatted with the extremely cordial crew leader. They already had the poles in and all that remained was to string the line, make the connection to my shed and then turn the power on up at the road.

Flabbergasting.

The power company did have to cut down one of my crooked trees, sadly. It hadn't been marked for removal by the power company's site inspector, but the crew felt strongly that the tree jeopardized the power line – and I could see their point since it was tall, dead and leaning in direction of the line.

See that leaning dead maple tree behind the truck?

I had wanted to leave it standing because it was so beautiful, but it's beautiful on the ground, too, and will make a wonderful bench for reading and picnicking. 

I have power right now. No more watching my laptop battery count down into oblivion. No more careful husbanding of my cellphone battery. This feels extremely – well, powerful.

The first thing I did, once the power was hooked up, was to call Eastlink to invite them to come hook me up with a high-speed Internet connection. The woman I spoke with on the phone was not the most helpful (she sounded like she had a terrible head cold and didn't seem like she'd be very with it at the best of times), but she took my info and set  up an appointment with a technician for Thursday morning, which is pretty quick. I wasn't complaining.

(The second thing I did was break my $0 booze budget and went and bought myself a bottle of bubbly.) 

And I was very glad to have a glass of bubbly inside me when I received a "confirmation" email from Eastlink that had me at a completely different address, even though I had confirmed the address several times with my call centre compatriot.

Another call to Eastlink ensued. I got the address issue sorted out with someone else and I got to keep my Thursday morning appointment.

I was all stoked to post today that on June 30, 2016, about 5 weeks since there was only a space cleared for my driveway and dwelling here, I have a home, a shed, a garden, electricity and Internet access.

But not so fast there with the bubbly optimism, Mac. Here, finally, is an example of things not happening as quickly as I'd hoped. My Eastlink visit this morning was anticlimactic. The technician needs a different crew to install a tap (tack? taco?) up at the pole on the road so that he can do the rest of the installation.

They should be able to do that sometime next week. In the meantime, I am close, but no cigar.

Oh well. A few more visits to my office in town may be in order, but that is no hardship.

And on the plus side, today I received my deposit back from the province for the work on my driveway. I was told that could take up to 6 months, so 4 weeks is cause for celebration.