Adulting – with bleach

There is a task that I have been putting off for a long time. Months, in fact.

When my plumbing fixtures were first installed, I was supposed to shock my well and all of the components of my water system with bleach.

I have been incredibly resistant to doing this. I mean, I shoulda done it back at the beginning of February, and it's now heading into the middle of October.

I have some empathy for myself in my resistance. I have some good reasons:

1. I love my well and I long ago learned that you shouldn't pour bleach down the throat of something you love. 
2. I have never done this (or anything like it) before. It feels new and unknown and therefore complicated and scary. 
3. It requires planning, equipment and supplies.
4. It requires time and effort. 
5. Did I mention that it involves bleach? I very rarely use bleach for ANYTHING. It is not my go-to for ANY task or purpose. I rarely even have bleach in my house. I don't like the way it smells. I don't like what it does, I just: ugh, yuck, icky, guh, blech.

And, I've decided it needs to get done. Just once. Just for the sake of doing it and having it done.

A note about my water quality

My water is great. I've had it tested. It doesn't contain any nasty chemicals and it doesn't contain any e. coli. It does contain choliforms, the benign bacteria that are just, you know, in the world.

A while back, it was deemed acceptable to have a certain number in choliforms in your well water in Nova Scotia. That number was dropped and dropped again, and currently there is a zero tolerance policy for choliforms.

Which is probably why most people have problems keeping a healthy population of friendly bacteria in their gut biome. But that's a rant for another day.

I've had my water tested for chemical impurities too and it is aces. Basically, I won the lottery of dug wells – I have lots of water and it's good water.

But, the presence of choliforms is deemed to be a red flag that my well is at risk of being contaminated by e. coli. And because my water tested positive for them, I have been living under my own personal boil water advisory since I moved into my cabin in February.

I have decided to accept that my water system should be cleaned out, at least once, to ascertain that my well is not compromised or at risk of further contamination, and to get rid of anything that might have gotten introduced when the pump and other plumbing was installed. And I would also like to be able to serve my water to guests without long explanations about why I'm giving them lukewarm, previously-boiled or bottled water.

The process

There is a whole publication about wells for Nova Scotian residents which can be found here, for anyone who is interested. Essentially, the process of "cleaning" a well is called shock chlorination and it involves putting bleach in the well, circulating it through all of the components of the water system, and then discharging it, trying to get as little as possible into the septic system, which really doesn't want to have all of its bacteria killed.

I have decided on one additional step, which involves patting myself on the back and eating cake.

Here are some photos:

Portrait of the blogger as a reluctant adult complying with provincial water quality guidelines. 

It took approximately FOREVER to try to clear the smell of bleach from my very low-flow bathroom tap.  

At least it was a gorgeous fall day. 

And my hose reached far enough to follow the instructions to circulate the bleached water for an hour in a loop between my cabin and the well. 

Looking down.

Securing the well cap. 

Salinger and I had one of our very rare arguments that day. He thought he should be allowed to lap up the bleach water that I was pouring on the driveway (to divert it from the septic system) while I thought that was a terrible idea. We worked out a compromise that included a combination of imprisoning him in the house, yelling at him each time he escaped and approached the puddles on the driveway and hosing away the bleach water with fresh water. Salinger was displeased with the whole process, and I don't blame him. It was no fun for anyone.

I should have gotten them to decorate it: "Happy shock chlorination" is probably not something that gets written on cakes very often. If ever. 

I do have a thing for badass, cheap, white bakery cake with icing that doesn't even pretend to have butter in it. And doesn't it look nice (is that the word I'm looking for?) on my beloved Fish's Eddy Manhattan skyline plate? 

I'm not going to lie to you. I hated every minute of this entire process. Even the cake didn't really help. I felt so anxious while I was doing this that I felt somewhat unhinged. I had every irrational fear (and maybe a few rational ones): that I was doing it all wrong, that I was poisoning myself and my beloved cat, that I was damaging my pump, my hot water heater, my pipes and every single element of my water system, that it was a mistake to do it in the first place.

It's been a week and while I've relaxed a great deal, I'm still not feeling settled about it. I still get mild whiffs of chlorine some of the time, at some of my taps and keep fighting off "always/never" thinking (I will always smell bleach in my water. I will never feel comfortable drinking it). I have taken a couple of showers without feeling like I've gotten chemical burns. I'm still not drinking my water, though, even boiled. It just feels too gross.

And that's funny because I lived in cities for so many years and drank chlorinated water without even batting an eye.

I am owning that this process made me feel completely not rational. And that was hard.

It reminds me that I put a lot of effort into organizing my life in ways that allow me to feel rational most of the time. I've been thinking this week especially about how that is a luxury afforded to me by privilege. And how incredibly grateful I feel that I have that luxury. Feeling that anxious all of the time would be agonizing. I guess I would get through it if I absolutely had to, but I am very, very thankful that I do not.

I took a water sample into the hospital on Thursday and should get results next week. Let's hope, after all that, that this at least accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish.

Update (October 17): Got my first water test results back and my water is zero for both choliforms and e. coli. Sweet. 

Construction: Weeks 13-17

If I thought weeks 9-12 were challenging, they had nothing on weeks 13-17. 

I can't even.

Here are some photos:

My clumsily but adequately installed slab insulation skirt (adequate was the engineer's word for it) 

With added Geotextile

Obstacle course. Crude but (hopefully) effective solutions.

December 17, 2017

The gravel pile.

Keep your powder (I mean, gravel) dry.

My beautiful furnace. I can't even say how magically, deliciously warm my house is.

Covering the skirt with gravel

Mudding and taping

Hieroglyphics (I loved all the bits of random math and cryptic messages I found on the walls of my home)

Making progress.

Coming along

Storm warning morning: January 4, 2018

This is the top of a tree that fell from a height of about 40 or 50 feet, fortunately onto the bare piece of ground next to my well – where it will aid the reforestation the process. The power lines are just about 20 feet to the left. 

The thaw after the storm let me move a lot more gravel

Sunny skies after the storm

Up on staging, priming the walls

Painting in the bathroom

Fresh and clean

Dusty and paint-spattered – and satisfied and tired – at the end of a long day.

Another thaw and this is all that's left of the gravel pile – I shoveled in my T-shirt sleeves in +15 Celsius weather on January 12, 2018. 

It was too soggy to manoeuvre around the house, so I spread the gravel on the driveway, where it was just as badly needed. 

This colour was called "Unforgettable" by the paint company. Which is, let's face it, a pretty forgettable name. My friend who was helping me paint that day (Thank you!) won the renaming contest with "I'm Lichen It" (my suggestion of "Chartresque" received an honourable mention).

I had my first ever exciting interior decorating idea for the bathroom. Here is the first stage – one and a third walls painted grey...

I don't think there is any way I can put together a literal narrative of this segment of the project, so here are some (mostly short) poems which attempt to capture something of these past five ineffable weeks:

Power outages

No back-up heat

Only questions

What–?

When–?

How soon–?

How long–?

If–?

Will it–?

Storm-stayed

Forest-caught wind

Throat-caught heart

House

rock solid

in the howling

night

Wreckage

I heard the SNAP

at two in the morning

Dawn cracks on

torn and twisted

sisters 

One top dropped

from fifty feet or more

Onto the bare ground

next to my new well

The first step 

in the reforestation project

Altercation

Frustration met with anger

Anger met with fear

Straight back to the old times

the bad times

the worst times

Always with me

Even 

After 

All 

These 

Years

Shoveling

The bite of the

blade

into the big pile

of Class A

The shuddering of

each landing

against the bottom of 

the wheelbarrow

My newfound

favourite meditation

Crunch

Clang

Roll

Dump

Spread 

Sweat

Repeat

Painting

Unforgettable

London Road

Milk Mustache

Pink A Boo

Lemon Ripple

Pink A Boo

Was a mistake

I swear

I handed in the wrong card

At the paint counter

Waiting

With luck

It will be done

next week

or

at least

before Christmas

No luck

Perhaps January first

Definitely January third

Or not

Tired

You'd think

it would get easier

After learning

so much

Figuring out

so much 

The confidence

of accomplishment

Look!

It's done!

A building

Warm against the cold

Solid against the wind

But it is not done yet

More interlocking tasks

Remain

More deadlines 

Remain 

to be hit or missed

tasks to be scheduled 

and/or re-scheduled

hit and miss

And I am tired.

Physically tired:

From painting

lugging

shoveling

sanding

vacuuming

disassembling

storm-watching

losing sleep

from surprises

and adjustments

Mentally tired: 

from learning

from failing 

and succeeding

from surprises

and adjustments

Emotionally tired:

from feeling

worrying

spinning

running on empty

trying to ask for help

managing disappointments

and surprises

and adjustments

I have sometimes thought that 

surprises

are the most delightful thing

about having a human brain

And I still think that

sometimes

But I have learned that

surprises are more fun for me

when I am playing tennis

than they are when I am 

trying to build a place to live

In real-life terms

surprises can be

exhausting

And so

instead of feeling

like this is getting easier

I'm battling fatigue

and an overwhelming desire 

for this to be over

done

complete

I promise myself that

I will 

NOT DO 

ANYTHING ELSE

to this place for several years

at least

except for gardening

And maybe 

just a little

recreational

gravel-shoveling

Construction: Week 1

Mumma, for why all these changes?

Well, after months of planning, designing, stressing, worrying and lining up contractors and estimates and quotes, the ball finally started rolling last week. 

I had found a contractor to pour the slab for my foundation, but I couldn't find anyone who was available to do the excavation. It feels like the entire south shore of Nova Scotia is madly building, trying to get things done before the snow flies and contractors are busy, busy, busy! I feel lucky to have found the great bunch of contractors who've agreed to work on this project, but I struck out trying to find a excavation contractor who was available, affordable and with whom I felt comfortable. And without the excavation work, nothing could move forward.

Luckily for me, my friend of the amazing chainsaw skills has myriad other skills and offered to do the excavation work I needed to have done. Not that he's not extremely busy, too, but he made the time so that work at my place wouldn't be held up – a tremendous and generous gift to me.

The first task was "scrubbing off" the organic matter, dead and alive.

It was a perfect opportunity to take logs that had been cut over the past year and a half to make way for the driveway and power lines and load them on the trailer to go off to be milled into useful lumber.

One of the limbs had to be removed from old Father Maple so that the big trucks would be able to back right up to the form. He remains a stately, if somewhat less crooked, presence. 

We had to have a couple of loads of shale delivered.

And my friend brought tons of gravel in his truck and trailer, too... 

...much of which we spread by hand using shovels, rakes and buckets.

I got to drive the excavator when the right-rear wheel of the truck went over the edge of the driveway and the truck had to be assisted back onto solid ground.

The awesome slab contractor loaned us his transit level so we could check how level the pad was as we spread the gravel. 

A DEEP trench had to be dug for the well line to go out from the house. You never think how deep 4 feet is, but it's deep enough when you're trying to dig through rocky South Shore Nova Scotian soil! 

I'm not going to lie to you, I melted down more than once last week. I felt so overwhelmed. I wished that I had never had the temerity to think that I could organize having a small cabin built for myself.

Days were spent leveling ground, moving logs and getting gravel in place. Despite being worn out by the work, I did not sleep well, waking up in the middle of the night with anxious thoughts like, "What am I doing?" and "Why did I decide to do this?"

There were some shaky, miserable hours. Fortunately, a number of people close to me provided moral support and tangible help, often exactly when it was needed most.

And there were some exiting moments, too. I invested in a chain saw and used it for the first time ever! And I drove the excavator. And I worked: healthy, outdoor, physical labour.

As the work progressed, I started to feel better. Excavation was hard – it felt like we were ripping the land to pieces. Fortunately, after ripping it apart, we started to put it back together again. And for me, as that happened "Why am I doing this?" and "What am I doing?" transformed into "I am doing this."

The definiteness of that is a lot more comfortable than sitting in the unknown of doubts and second guesses.

And since I am doing this, I want to embrace the process. After several wobbly weeks, I've come to understand that if I want this house to be built wholeheartedly, by people who are kind and easy through the process, that means that I have to find kindness and ease in my heart, too.

Otherwise, there is no point.

This construction project requires Salinger to be vigilant and alert. On Friday, when all the machines had gone away for a bit, he had to have some serious naps to recover from all of the excitement.

It's my happening... and it freaks me out

So, uh, I'm building a cabin, yeah?

Well, I'm not building it. I might contribute some amount of work to the project, but mostly it's going to be built by other people.

People who know what they are doing.

And that's a good thing.

So far, I am finding this a tremendously complex and daunting process. There are so many different people who need to do so many different things. Estimates have to be requested, acquired, considered and selected for each element of the project.

Decisions must be made.

I confirmed my third contractor today – and I am having a full-on anxiety meltdown.

I'm not entirely sure why. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? It can all get horribly fouled-up and I'll wind up with a bunch of debt for no actual building or a building that I can't live in and I will have to declare bankruptcy and lose this land, my shed, my un-winterized tiny home on wheels, the new building (or some unfinished part thereof) and have to start over from scratch. 

Well, that's not so bad, is it?

Afterall, it's only money and security and the comfort of feeling like I'm good at modern life. I think I can live without all of those things. I think I have the resilience to come through this if it's a massive disaster.

But, I hope it won't be.

Please, please, please, don't be a massive disaster.

Please.

Please.

Please.

Stay calm... and build a cabin

It's been a while since I posted here.

For one thing, I've been underwater with a big desk-work project for the past 6 weeks.

But for another thing, I have been feeling nervous, stressed and a bit fragile. It's challenging to put myself down in pixels when I'm feeling that way. It can take me a while to figure out how to express myself. Also, it's a whole lot easier not to say anything and let others assume that I am just over here, doing my thing: calm, cheerful and collected.

I have not been that calm. I have been feeling very challenged this year by the process of trying to get my tiny cabin designed and built. These are uncharted waters. I don't know what I'm doing, or how it's going to get done. I hope I'm going to succeed, but at the core, I just don't know and for me that stirs up fear and anxiety.

The dream

Then, this morning, I had a dream.

I was walking in New York City (which, FYI, is where my dad was born/grew up and is one of my personal, life-long "happy places"). It was November and I was wearing my winter coat. It wasn't quite cold enough for a full-length wool coat, so, I kept overheating, especially when I went into buildings. So, I kept taking off my coat to stay comfortable. And I kept losing it. With my wallet and phone in the pockets. Each time I realized it was missing, I would retrace my steps and ask if anyone had seen a black coat. And each time, some kind person would have kept it safe and would hand it back to me with a smile, with my wallet and phone right where I left them.

Then, while walking down a street in midtown, I randomly encountered the daughter of some friends of mine (who I was supposed to look up while I was in the city, but hadn't yet contacted). We started chatting, then some friends of hers bumped into us and we all decided to go to a restaurant for drinks and a snack. On the way there, I got separated from the group and lost them. In real life, that sort of thing would be very upsetting to me. In my dream, I took it in stride and kept walking, relaxed and enjoying the experience of being in Manhattan. Eventually, I found the restaurant they were in and was able to rejoin them.

The reality

This dream feels like a timely message from my unconscious mind.

Basically, I am being reminded that things are going wrong and going right all of the time.

That is the nature of the chaos of this world, a world where things continually happen – and don't happen – either because they were put in motion/stopped by one of over 7.5 billion people, by one of countless butterflies or for no particular reason at all. Our human brains try to impose order and meaning on the VERSE* so we can pretend we are charting a course from where we are to where we want to be (or at least keeping our heads above water), but we are kidding ourselves if we think that we are able to control more than a few of the variables, let alone all of them.

My project to build a cabin on my land this year feels like a complex task that is exposed to many forces beyond my control. It feels like there have been a lot of delays and missteps. Unlike last spring, when everything fell into place seamlessly, quickly and with minimal effort (despite my lack of knowledge and understanding), my process this year has felt choppy, raw and uncomfortable. Last year, it felt like the VERSE really wanted me to get settled on this piece of land, but this year, it seems indifferent – or perhaps ambivalent.

I have been trying (very trying, as we joke in my family), but at this point in the process, there are still several vital pieces that are not yet in place. And we are supposed to break ground this month!

Of course, there have been some exciting and serendipitous moments, too. I have people on my team who I trust implicitly. I have friends who have been rock-steady and generous with their support. And I have had opportunities to grow. I have braved asking for help – help getting unstuck, help handling my anxiety, help with many tasks and pieces of information. And some – not all, but some – of the time, I have been met in ways that have reinforced the things that I am learning.

The trouble is that the things that aren't working have been looming large while the things that are working feel hard to hang on to.

I have been stressing and sometimes even catastrophizing. And I have been taking things personally, feeling like it is my lack of ability and knowledge, my mistakes, my poor decisions, that have been at the cause of every difficulty. I have been dwelling on the very real possibility that this is not going to work, that I am going to #fail. That's not a very fun place to be. Doubt (and even worse, self-doubt) are bad company.

Gratitude

And then, this dream.

The first half of the dream says loud and clear – trust other people. People have your back.

The second half of the dream says – stay relaxed and keep the faith. Connections will happen organically. And even if pieces fall apart, they will come back together. I can find enjoyment in the process. I will get where I'm going, even if I don't know where that is or how to get there.

I feel gratitude that my unconscious brain knows (far better than my stressed-out conscious brain) how to navigate this process. And I love that it cared enough to take me to New York last night to show me the way.

In closing, a favourite New York photo – a mosaic of sea turtles swimming (effortlessly ;) in Houston Street subway station.

*VERSE = Very Enormous Random Swirl of Events

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.

Moving

They say moving is ranked among the top three most stressful events in life – right up there with changing jobs and losing a loved one through death or heartbreak.

I believe it.

I hate moving. I'm happy to help other people move, but I hate moving myself.

There has been a lot of moving in my life over the past 6 years. I've really pared down my belongings, but I still have way too much stuff in way too many locations and in far too much disorder.

I'm moving this week. It feels overwhelming and complicated. It involves a lot of anxiety and a lot of work.

Last night, I had a dream that I was – you guessed it – moving.

On one side of the narrow road that I had to travel with my things, there was a rock face and on the other side, a steep drop. And, if that wasn't scary enough, there was a dragon who was angry with me for having stolen a beautiful gemstone (yes, I did read The Hobbit compulsively as a child).

In my dream, two of my wonderful friends were helping me me move. (Lucky for me, in real life, several more of my dear friends have volunteered to help me move). We did the first load very quietly without waking the dragon. Then I told them that I just couldn't bear the risk of them doing the second load. I didn't want anything bad to happen to them. So I went back alone, as quietly as possible, to get the rest of my stuff.

I can't remember how the dream ended.

But, I'm pretty sure I got busted by the dragon as I sneaked back with the second load. And ended up as ashes and dust. (Which might be my subconscious mind telling me that I should just light all of my belongings on fire and start fresh).

So, here's to moving: anxiety and terror met (in my dream at least) with courage, love — and inevitable, sickening disaster.

Wish me luck.

Judgy! Judgy! Judgy!

I've been working on this blog post for a few weeks, trying to find just the right way to say what I would like to say about my experience of being judgmental.

But I've been having trouble getting it right. (Ironic, no?)

Then this afternoon, I saw a link to this story about the Non-Judgmental Ninja meme introduced by Wil Wheaton on his blog.

It looks like a lot of people can relate to being more judgmental (of themselves or others) than they'd like to be.

*****
Let me share my experience:
When I look long and hard at myself, I see that one of my biggest struggles in life is around judging other people — and myself.

I've been a judgy person for as long as I can remember.

As far as I can tell, this behaviour stems out of feeling unsafe.

When I'm in a situation that feels unsafe to me, I use judgment to insulate myself from my feelings of fear. I bring up a formula to judge someone who scares, threatens or triggers me and think "I'm not [insert scary, judged character trait here] and people who are [that way] are terrible people and I don't like them."

I've carried this practice like a shield that I could use whenever I felt threatened – as if, as long as I was able to judge other people, I would never have to be vulnerable myself.

I had a conversation with one of my friends a couple of months ago about judgment and about being more tolerant. And these words popped out of my mouth:

"You know, my judgy-ness is just as worthy of compassion as everyone else's issues are."

And I think that's true. (And that is part of what is so lovely about the Non-judgmental Ninja meme.) My judgment and contempt come from a very damaged, ill-functioning place in my personality. They shield very vulnerable, fragile parts of me.

Judgy-ness defies compassion by seeming strong and aggressive, but it desperately need hugs and understanding – just like the various struggles of many other people do. When I engage in judgments, contempt and self-righteousness, it's a sure-fire sign that I don't feel safe – in fact, I am very probably downright terrified.

So, if you can, please forgive me (or any other judgy person in your life). Reassurance and hugs are  helpful – or maybe draw a little Non-Judgmental Ninja cartoon like this one: