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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Tiny Home/Land Report: From Overwhelmed to Confident (in about 4 hours)

I admit that I have been dragging my heels most of the summer, not doing much of anything about my land, except thinking about it. (And by thinking, what I really mean is worrying, fussing and spinning my wheels).
A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed to accept that I wasn't going to be anywhere near ready to over-winter in my tiny home this year. So, I began the hunt for a winter rental (and I think I've got that just about sorted, which is good).

Three days ago, I called a (known and trusted) contractor about putting in a driveway. Two days ago, he and I went to look at my land together. I explained my two or three tentative plans, we ixnayed one of the ideas but didn't see any major impediments to either of the other two. The estimate is forthcoming. The deciding factor between the two plans will be cost. Depending on how much money will need to be spent, I will decide on Plan A or Plan B and also whether I can afford to proceed this fall or if I will have to wait for the spring.

From OVERWHELMED...


After the meeting about the driveway the night before, I woke up yesterday morning feeling completely overwhelmed. I had intended to go to the municipal planning department to talk about building permits, but I just couldn't face it, even though I know I have a two-page list of questions I need to ask, trying to narrow down my options.

As I understand it, in my municipality, if I leave my house on wheels, I don't need to get a building permit to put it on the land and it doesn't have to meet code. The first building I put on the land, regardless of its size, does need a building permit and does need to meet the code, but anything after that does not, as long as it is smaller than 210 square feet.

One of the biggest decisions I face is what kind of building, if any, I want to put on my land.

Do I want to put a building on my land that is low-serviced? Basically a combo garage/firewood storage space, with on-grid electricity, but no heat or running water? Or do I want to build a small "water house" with running hot and cold water, a kitchenette, bathroom and washing machine hook-up (with either a full septic system or a greywater system and composting toilet)? Or do I want to build a full-on, rooted-to-the-earth tiny house with power, heat, running hot and cold water – everything contained in one place. Or would I rather not build anything at all and just perch on the land in my current tiny home either three seasons a year or year round (with the latter option obviously requiring a number of winterization measures).

Each of these options will entail very different things in terms of permits and cost.

And I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before so I'm learning at a great rate. If I'm not careful I get overwhelmed and I feel very lost and scared.

It's a big challenge for me to go slow, not get ahead of myself or try to take on too much at once.

And while I'm doing this project solo, by and for myself, it's important for me to remember that I don't have to do it alone.

Yesterday was a perfect reminder of that.

...to confident.

After my dismal, stressed-out morning yesterday, I was in town in the afternoon, running errands, when my phone rang. The call was from a couple of friends for whom I had done a substantial favour earlier in the summer. They had offered to return the favour with a day of work (meaning two person days of work – an agreement that seemed more than fair to me, especially since they are super-handy and work in the field of forest ecology, offering skills that I really need). I understood that they were having a busy summer and that our work party would need to wait until late summer, or even early fall.

When they called yesterday, my friends said they were unexpectedly free for the afternoon and since it wasn't too sweltering hot to work, was I available to come take a look at my land? I was mostly hoping for their knowledgeable advice about what trees to cut and what not to cut, but I got way more than I was hoping for! They brought a chainsaw and after four hours of work, we had cut out and cleared about half of the length of the planned driveway at a width of 16 feet!

It was an amazing transformation! My land has not been cleared or tended in any way in a long time. It is a stand of natural, mature forest – very little undergrowth, lots of standing and fallen dead wood. I find it remarkably beautiful, but what I was not prepared for is how much more beautiful it is with a swath of it cut out. The space for the driveway is now framed and canopied by trees. The trees look much taller now that one can stand back and really get a look at them.
The clearing sets off the trees to better advantage!
Look how tall and majestic they are!

And the things I learned about forest ecology were useful and fascinating. We selected the path for the driveway with an eye to preserving certain trees – favouring hardwoods (which are less common on my land) and a couple of beautiful old, super-straight tamaracks and pines. We mostly took out the small, crappy fir trees, many of which were standing dead anyway from a lack of light under the canopy of taller trees.

My friends explained how brush piles and piles of dead wood act as nourishment for existing trees and how they could be positioned to regulate water drainage on the property. And that I could transplant baby trees from the middle of the planned driveway to other spots on the property, where they will get more light – and not be decimated by the excavators.

Plus, we piled up a good start on next year's firewood!

One of several piles of firewood,
ready to be bucked up!

All in all, it was an extremely satisfying, informative, fun and uplifting afternoon!

In one short afternoon, I went from feeling stuck and stymied about my land to hopeful and heart-lifted.

It is very good to have good friends.

I am very, very grateful.

And I am strongly reminded to be open to receiving help when it's being offered.

Where once there were only trees...

PS: because our work party had been planned so spontaneously, I had to take off around 6:15 pm to keep a commitment with some friends who are visiting from out of town. My friends said they would continue cutting and clearing for another half-hour or so. When I went back today to take the pictures I had forgotten to take for this blog post, I was amazed to see how much more they had done. They must have stayed much longer than a half hour, and they cleared about the same distance again that we had cleared in the first four hours. I am amazed and humbled by their hard work, efficiency, diligence and their generosity with their work and talents. 

And I am even more grateful than I was yesterday, if that is even possible. 

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

9 interesting things I've learned about forgiveness

I'm a bit of a grudge-holder.

This is not my favourite part of my personality. But I can see why and how it developed and I can try to have compassion for myself when I'm feeling bitter and resentful.

I used to hold on to and fuss over:

 Every. 
 Little. 
 Thing. 

I've gotten a lot better about that. I don't sweat the small stuff much anymore. Little things tend to roll off my back pretty quickly and easily.

And I'm getting better at expressing myself when I'm upset. I have been really pleased (and kind of surprised, actually) to have been met with a lot of kindness and understanding recently when I've had exchanges that have upset me that I needed to talk through with other people. Very often, hurts are unintentional and if both parties are willing, it can be an easy matter to sort things through and get back on a comfortable footing. In fact, working through a misunderstanding often brings us closer together with our friends, family members or lovers. Being able to work things out and salve hurt feelings builds trust.

However, when someone hurts me severely, and is not interested in trying to make amends or sorting things out, I usually feel like I'm falling apart. When that happens, anger and judgment are what I use as binding agents to hold myself together. It's a proven strategy for me. I've made it into my 40s without disintegrating into a chaotic mess — and frankly, I am grateful for the coping mechanisms that have enabled me to do that.

The unfortunate thing about that is that it can take me a long time to forgive major injuries.

So far, I have mostly succeeded (eventually) in forgiving people who've hurt me badly.

I feel like I have learned some interesting things about forgiveness over the years.

Here are my nine favourite things that I have learned about forgiveness

  1. Forgiveness can take me a very long time.
  2. I can work toward forgiveness, but I can't force it. It comes when it comes.
  3. When it arrives, major forgiveness arrives all in a rush – an epiphany that feels a lot like a religious experience. Even if I've worked and worked and worked toward it, when it arrives, it feels like an instant transformation.
    (Incidentally, this is also my experience of deciding to let go of relationships. I'll be struggling, struggling, struggling trying to make something work that just isn't, and then I'll have what feels like a sudden realization that it is time to move on; that I simply need to remove myself from the situation.)
  4. I believe I have experienced far greater benefits from letting go of my resentments than have the people I have forgiven.
  5. It is easier for me to forgive someone who is making, has made, or has even attempted to make, amends.
  6. Time and distance are essential components for me; it is really hard (perhaps impossible) for me to forgive someone who is in the process of hurting me in the present moment. I mean, I'm not Gandhi, or anything (although, from what I hear, Gandhi wasn't necessarily Gandhi either).
  7. Forgiveness does not heal the wounds that have been inflicted.
    This is perhaps the most interesting thing about forgiveness in my mind. Even once I forgive the other, I still have to deal with the consequences of the wounds that were inflicted. Forgiveness for me is only the first step. On the plus side, forgiveness frees up a lot of energy to put toward working to heal those wounds. On the downside, the older I get, the more I understand (and believe) what my Nana always used to say about how the hurts we have experienced stay with us forever. She said to me many times: "There will always be a scar there." And I think she was right. At least for people with personalities like hers and mine. (She also advised against picking at those scars. I think she was right about that too).
  8. Often, the people we feel have hurt us don't see the events that took place in the same way that we do.
    I don't think very many people set out to be the villain in someone else's life. And even when people are extremely harmful to others, it is often not in their best interest to admit to others or to themselves the harm that they've done. I find that most people have good stories/reasons/excuses for why they did what they did. They might even think the whole thing was the fault of the person who feels hurt! (And maybe part of it was. Owning up to one's own share in a dynamic can be an important piece in the forgiveness puzzle.)
  9. Forgiving someone doesn't mean that you ever want to be in contact with them again.
    Some people are just not good for us. As a friend once wisely told me, "Hurt people hurt people." Often, if we keep certain people in our lives, they are just going to keep hurting us and keep needing to be forgiven. Now getting some practice with forgiveness can be a good thing, but there's a point where we are just beating our heads up against a brick wall. And, if we don't want ourselves to become the hurt people who hurt people, we need to protect ourselves from people who know how to hurt but who don't know how to heal or repair damaged relationships and broken hearts.
I may never become a master of forgiveness. Forgiveness might always come to me slowly and grudgingly.

But I have learned to trust that it usually comes.

Eventually.

In its own time.

And for that, I am very, very grateful.

Because forgiveness, when it finally arrives, unshackles my heart and sets me free to heal.

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

5th Annual Pennybrook Festival Report

The 5th Annual.

It sounds so official, doesn't it?

But this year's festival was the least official yet, I think.

With a busy summer (and a little bit of volunteer burnout) happening, we decided to be very casual in our organization of the Pennybrook Festival this year. With the stage already built, the preparations were not as physically demanding, which was good.

There was still a lot to do – site and food preparation mostly – getting the field bush-hogged, raking, setting up the tents, making food for the musicians and for the potluck. Sadly one of our three core volunteer organizers had to be away for work during the festival itself, so there was lots of multi-tasking going on. Fortunately, a few good friends volunteered to give us a hand on Friday night and Saturday.

Despite the generally lackadaisical approach to the festival, we had a stellar line-up: Sahara Jane and Daunt Lee came back for a second year. Steve Keith participated in a set of smoking hot bluegrass with Kevin Roach and Jude Pelley and then came back up on stage again for a set of smoking hot jazz. John Muller cracked us up with this awesome anti-Harper song:



Even I played a set – a rare occurence for me these days.

Half of the audience consisted of super-talented musicians themselves and once the stage wound down, there were two separate after-hours jams – the folkies sang around the campfire while the bluegrassers tore it up in the green room (which was not located in my house this year). As usual, I collapsed way before the festivities ended, but once again I had the joy of listening to the fun as I drifted off to sleep in my Tiny Home, comfortably situated about 40 feet away from the bonfire with all of its windows open to the warm evening air.

Sunday morning was all chat and bacon and caffeine. After we got the cobwebs shaken out, we settled in for more tunes – well, I say "we" but I'm afraid I was mostly listening from my house while I plowed away on some desk work to meet an unfortunately-timed deadline that I had committed to months ago. I had begged the client to try to steer work away from this past weekend, but to no avail.

Oh well. Sometimes it goes that way. I was feeling a bit emotionally shaky on Sunday anyway, for one reason and another, so it was kind of soothing to sit and zen out with my work, with an amazing soundtrack unfolding in my front yard.

We're not sure if we have another festival in us, but if this was the last Pennybrook Festival, we ended on a high note. And it certainly has been an amazing, fully-alive five years.

I always have a favourite moment in each festival. This year it was listening to Sahara Jane recite an English translation of a Rumi poem right before she sang it the poem as a song in Dari. The tears streamed down my face as I listened to her speak Rumi's words: so thoughtful, thought-provoking, complex and unexpected.

I can't find the exact translation that Sahara recited online, but here is a link with several translations of the same Ghazal: http://sunlightgroup.blogspot.ca/2010/06/sunlight-i-was-dead-i-became-alive.html

It was a truly beautiful weekend – so many big warm hearts and hugs. Songs of truth, heartbreak, hope, giddy joy.

I came away filled to the brim and utterly exhausted. My heart is full of gratitude and love – for my fellow organizers, our volunteers, musicians and audience.

We made something beautiful happen.

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Tendrils (A poem)

I.

I don’t want anyone
I’ve ever loved
to leave me now

This rigid clinging
feels necessary
feels vital
feels deadly

I don't know how
to move beyond it
and yet
I know that I must

I must go out for dinner
with a smile on my face
I must go to the grocery
store
and find there the
ingredients necessary
for life
for a future
for change

II.


A little shoot is poking
at the valves and
chambers
deep inside my heart

Mitral
Ventral
What the hell

All feel the disturbance of
something growing

It is something born of
endings
it is something terrified of
beginnings

It can't help itself

It is inexorable
relentless
defiant
tender
tiny

but growing

making an irritating
scritch
scritch
scritch
as it perforates the walls

When it is fully grown
its roots will fill my lungs
its stem will twine round
my esophagus
and burst out
from under my tongue

*****

I wrote this poem in the winter of 2014–2015. It began in one of Firefly Creative Writing's wonderful on-line classes. It was improved with feedback from my mom, poet Janet Barkhouse, whose poems have been published in many periodicals and whose blog can be found here.