Some historical notes about my life; my Father was in the Army and we lived in many interesting places because of this. Three years in France and three years in Japan flavored my world permanently and infused their color and seasonings into my soul. Stateside also lent many colorful contributions to my world. Colorado, Arizona, Texas, Montana, Missouri, and my beloved Oregon all have heartstrings for me. I claim Colorado as hometown state since that is the family stomping grounds so to speak; my Mother is there and I graduated from school there. I moved to Oregon in 1976, life never to be the same. Enter the nature's child living on the land tents homebirths (all four kids) teepees yurt electricless decades. I learned many skills that most will never have. I say "a teepee girl can survive" because after living this way you gain the skills necessary to really function and thrive at any level of civilizations offerings. I basically was on a long camping trip, hearth and home wise.
We lived communally, swam naked, raised food and children, traveled to festivals, ate clean foods - mostly vegetarian, and many other lovely things. Also we lived well below any sort of financial level considered to be minimum by any standards. Slowly I matriculated back into a semi-traditional lifestyle complete with running water, steady income and town life. Albeit the towns were very fringe-freindly and composed of cultural openness. I did have some re-entry learning curves; it took months to adapt back into electricity tolerance because I had been away from the constant buzzing of the lines that infiltrate our homes. People don't realize the vibe being surrounded by electricity creates in our bodies as opposed to not being near it.
me and Willow, Takilma 1978
Well, my point I guess is that now not having an address is not really new to me. But the situation is different these days and these surroundings. I also am not as young as I was then and I have learned to love the security (false, evidently..) of having a proper home. If life as we know it is heading for 2012isms etc., I hope to enjoy amenities and comfort for awhile longer if I can! Really though, I usually had a bigger range of options in the old days. Now I am plugged into a different paradigm, or maybe it is the same... Maybe I am ahead of the curve in life experience and skills. Maybe the return to my gypsy princess roots has been to open my eyes and look to new ways to help my community.
But I want to have a home so I rest and can do my art and study and have a sanctuary for my children. I want to plant a garden that I will actually be around to harvest. I need some roots. (Earth girl, looking at the stars.) Maybe if I were a plant I'd be a biennial, yikes if really I am a perennial, only to blossom for the one season then die off (not literally of course). But seeds I do scatter to the winds, to send my hard won wisdom and yearnings to hopefully find fertile soil. I will do all the work needed to accomplish this, yes. My heart is happy by choice no matter what; even the twinges of pain add to that ultimately.
I am still here folks. Still a gypsy princess -with some progress, and some not so much progress. Meaning I still do not have a "proper" home yet. I have been able to use a tiny travel trailer to sleep in for a few weeks, but that very abruptly has come to an end so it is back to my little car. It has been nice to have a small bed and somewhere to plug in a little hotplate to heat water on. I have become a master of instant just-add-water food like cup-o-noodles and instant coffee and tea bags. My favorite menus have been simple fare like seed bread, local cheese, fruit and an occasional inexpensive cabernet sauvignon or zin. Life doesn't have to suck my friends. It doesn't cost much more really and makes me feel a bit like I'm on a picnic.
There was no bathroom (or water) in the trailer but I had some access to one (with no shower) which now will seem like an incredible luxury. I take showers at the local swimming pool community center for $2.00 each. A hot shower is REALLY one of life's pleasures. Access to a bathroom at any hour of day is the challenge. Wake up early and drive to McDonald's and use theirs... These are the daily challenges that really separate my day from the "norm". These are the things that make me feel the pinch of not-home living. Like traveling, but, really - not. Hurts the heart something fierce sometimes.......
Let me tell you there are more people living in this situation than you realize. Until you've walked this road for whatever reason, you never see it so clearly. It isn't easy. The line is very thin between these worlds, the homed and the homeless, but separate they are.
I have been able to spend lots of quality time with my love and muse, The Beach. It has been so comforting and inspiring and exciting. I walk for miles, dream, sit and look and beachcomb. Usually I spend many hours a day there - it is free, it changes every day, and has plenty of room to roam and stretch one's eyes to the far horizon. You can even nap. It makes me happy to be on the beach plus Neptune tosses little treasures upon the shore every day, every minute sometimes. I have so many agates and shells and sea glass piled up on my dashboard, decorating my little automotive pony with the booty of a beachy girl. But also it just plain gives me a place to be, to hang out. There are many hours a day and you have to be somewhere. I rarely see anyone I know so it is a strangely anonymous place in a small town. Of course, the beach has been full of tourists, visitors, whatever term you prefer. Also there are miles of beach with many different access points.
If I was to wish for merfolkish dreadlocks, this would of been the summer to do it. The sometime strong winds and the mist of ocean do interesting things to hair. I usually have to spend quite a few minutes detangling before I can go places after the beach. My hair will be ready for some deep conditioning soon but I love the sunstreaks and waves and tendrils in my blonder-than-before hair. I have always preferred a semi-wild, untamed look as opposed to über grooming. Yep, that's me, feral girl.
I have enrolled in online higher education at a large community college which has me very excited. I can use the WiFi at the library with the lovely laptop a friend is letting me use till I can get my PC up in a homespace. Soon I pray, please please. I should have some better prospects at the end of October, just in time for the real turn towards rain rain rain and cold here on the lovely loved loving Oregon Coast. I am amazed at life every day and have so many blessings; those I count and appreciate ALWAYS! I am fine. Just look how pretty it is here. Home.
Then Or Now
Is it necessary for me to write obliquely
about the situation? Is that what
you would have me do? by Adrienne Rich fom "Dark Fields of the Republic"
My hundreth post finds me being a gypsy princess and a wandering Nowhere Girl. Living on the road my friend, gonna keep you free and clean. Yes, it is true, I haven't a home to call my own since the end of June. Luckily the weather has been more than wonderful for my coastal existence. I call the beach my room, "I am going to my room..." I spend hours at the beach every day. I have a car which sets me apart from the wandering on foot variety of roofless. I have all my belongings in storage until the day comes that I can afford to rent a place. My fabulous teenage sons are staying at their father's which is in the same vicinity so that is okay for awhile. We hang out and text and talk many times each day. Friends have let me crash on their couches, in their small trailers, etc. and I shower wherever I can. This is not for the faint of heart my friends. I have slept in my car also which is an art seldom given it's due. I miss my computer, wish I had a laptop. I also go to a town inland 60miles away where my 2 beautiful daughters and grandchildren live and stay there for a few days here and there but don't want to be far from my sons. All the while pretending nothing out of the ordinary has occured in the course of my daily interactions with other people in my 'professional' realm. I don't want to be a problem or worry. I have fallen thru the cracks but will sprout like a strong resilient weed. I am okay and only occasionally give into a strange and cleansing despair, and I try to actually enjoy the unconventional freedoms and insights homelessness offers.......... The rains and cold will come before long and we shall see how this wildish Sagittarian gal fends then.
I asked her, "Is Aladdin's lamp
Hidden anywhere?"
"Look into your heart," she said,
"Aladdin's lamp is there."
She took my heart with glowing hands.
It burned to dust and air
And smoke and rolling thistledown
Blowing everywhere.
Follow the thistledown," she said,
"Till doomsday, if you dare,
Over the hills and far away.
Aladdin's lamp is there." Vachel Lindsay
Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their heart's desire: Jingle pockets full of gold, Marry when they're seven years old. Every child may keep Two strong ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; They live on cherries, they run wild - I'd love to be a fairy's child. Robert Graves
My wild Pacific was silky and languid today. Sparkling in the sun, smooth greener than blue waves spanking the shore. Aye, but she can't be tamed. She'll be sleet gray and whipping tall stinging washes of water at us in no time at all. So you better run down to the beach now because summer is short, life is short and a calm wind can heal many things. Love love love it.
Oh, yeah - somebody tell me not to leave my camera behind..
PANCHO & LEFTY
Living on the road my friend
Was gonna keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath's as hard as kerosene
You weren't your mama's only boy
But her favorite one it seems
She began to cry when you said goodbye
And sank into your dreams
Pancho was a bandit boys
His horse was fast as polished steel
Wore his gun outside his pants
For all the honest world to feel
Pancho met his match you know
On the deserts down in Mexico
Nobody heard his dying words
That's the way it goes
All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him hang around
Out of kindness I suppose
Lefty he can't sing the blues
All night long like he used to
The dust that Pancho bit down south
Ended up in Lefty's mouth
The day they laid poor Pancho low
Lefty split for Ohio
Where he got the bread to go
There ain't nobody knows
All the federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him slip away
Out of kindness I suppose
The poets tell how Pancho fell
Lefty's livin' in a cheap hotel
The desert's quiet and Cleveland's cold
So the story ends we're told
Pancho needs your prayers it's true,
But save a few for Lefty too
He just did what he had to do
Now he's growing old
A few gray federales say
They could have had him any day
They only let him go so wrong
Out of kindness I suppose
by Townes Van Zandt
Video - Emmylou Harris 1977.
What makes summer so special? The feeling of fewer clothes, less binding of one's tender flesh. The sky so big and open you can see all the way to the Pleiades where the angels live. The time seeming to linger and draw loops of memory, like a sparkler's trail of light. The way a fruit or tea tastes in the sun. The sound of a train whistle in the night, connecting dots of distance. The way a concern or worry can be put in the bottom of one's knapsack, to be brushed off of sand and crumbs at the end of the long weekend. The knowledge that love may be only a handshake, a wave, a whisper away, if one wants to dare. The tear forming at the far corners of the eye, the corner that sees the fleeting nature of summer, the summer that will change and move on even when we drag our heels and try to linger.
This little ditty is off season and a bit off topic in my life but it resonates to my heart all the same.
STAY
Fall's first gold is green.
It falls somewhere between
a joy and a concern,
but soon the leaves will turn
flamboyant with that doubt,
like people falling out
of love, becoming all
the lovlier as they fall. Eric McHenry
When I was a little girl I was always fascinated by the story of the little match girl by Hans Christian Anderson. She sold wooden stick matches out in the freezing snow at the holidays and looked in the windows of the wealthy and saw the laden tables of food and gifts and warm fire crackling in the hearth. Sad, cold and hungry, she sat in the snow in the alleyway and burned her matches one by one stealing what little warmth and light she could from them, each one of course burning out very quickly. Soon she had used up all the matches. She fell into a cold slumber, dreaming of her grandmother and days of happiness before she died and left her all alone. So the story ends with the little girl dying in the snow and being led away into the light by her grandmother's spirit. Sad. Poignant.
Now I am being uprooted. Changes of the unknown kind grow rampant and unchecked in my garden. A great unbidden fickle hand is swooping in to pull my gentle weedy friends and trim my hedge, leaving me exposed and without shelter . Leave me some fragrant flowers and healing herbs please, wild unknowable future. Pot up a little bowl of parsley and thyme to roll out the door with me. Guide me to verdant and solid ground, where my roots can finally spread and bear the fruits of my labor, not to be uprooted for a long long while. Let me plant again, spreading in comfort and security my wild herbs and flowers, my hedge of many colors, my salad and turnips and radish. Give me a home where the pixies roam and the skies can be cloudy if they want to be.
of these things I have not spoken, altho it is what is happening in my life. but it does not define me or confine me or delay my movement into further realms of contributing to a better world, as best I can..
I do not want to miss a minute of the warm weather, not one single precious minute. The air on my bare arms finally is not raising goosebumps of chill. The air so kindly is wafting to my eager nose smells of the biggest umbel flowers blooming at the edge of the hedge.
One thing you may not know about me is that I gave birth to my first daughter in a tent under the trees near the river in hot July sunny shine 32 years ago. It was a beautiful time to camp and enjoy nature and live freely and wildly. I was accompanied by fine wise midwives and attendant birds singing in the trees. It was a good day.
All 4 of my kids were born at home. I will tell you about that sometime.
We had a rather large tent with a fine place to pitch it. It began my love affair with having walls of canvas as opposed to brick or wood. I will tell you of my days living in a tepee sometime.
I love being outside all day and watching the changes of nature's rhythm as it flows. I love when the first star twinkles in the dusk (make a wish!) and the moon comes over the horizon. I love the comfort that the new day's sun brings as I snuggle back down into blankets for a few more minutes of sleep. I loved gathering wood for the campfire and fetching water and a delicious cup of coffee, the reward for my efforts as I smiled.
This long, seemingly 2 years of wet cool springing weather has kept me inside way more than I would prefer and made me glad to have those wooden walls to keep me dry. Now my heart sings and soars to the outside wide sky and whispery winds and nighthawks cry.
... Well, it WAS nice yesterday, the eve of summer's debut. Today, already, the heat of the inland valleys has kept the cool marine air hugging the coast, not dissipating and blowing away, alas. So, ha, the sweater is back on my chilled arms and I write of warm dreams and memories.
I know much of our nation is very very hot now, some with too much moisture and some with almost none. The Pacific Northwest has both coolness and moisture. This spring has gone on the record books as extra cool and extra wet, as was last year. I don't think it has even reached 64ºF yet all year. So although I appreciate this moderate and verdant weather, I do long for real true summery shining sky and warmth. I think nothing rejuvenates the spirit and brings out our childlike heart as much as summer does.
as a young lass, Summer dreamed of the day she would fill the sky with warmth and glowing light, making everyone smile and frolic
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