Regrets? I’ve Had a Few.

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Melissa

Cement leaf, cast from our Big Leaf Maple tree.

I think in a previous post I may have made some kind of grandiose statement to the effect that there is nothing I regret having thrown out in our attempts to downsize and restructure the way we live. I believe I may have implied, or perhaps directly stated, that I’m actually happy I have rid myself of all the many truckloads of stuff that now languishes somewhere in the thrift shops of the world. I would like to amend that statement now. That statement is not precisely true. In fact, just today I realized I had thrown out something that I really wish I had kept because, as I feared, I now want to use it. Isn’t there some kind of saying to the effect that the moment one gets rid of something, one needs it?

What is this very important item, the intrigued reader wonders? Why, it’s a completely unopened aqua blue mosquito netting, made to drape over a bed. It’s not a high quality one, but I bought it because I found it for less than 3$, loved the color, and I figured someday I would either use it, or would give it as a gift. What it represents to me now is yards and yards of gauzy fabric in a perfect shade of aquamarine.

The problem is that I craft. It’s not a constant problem, I don’t always make things, but occasionally I get a wild hair and begin working with different materials in a creative sort of way. In the past I have worked with fabric, photography, mosaic, and cement. I’ve made some pretty nifty things with those materials, and always I have had to spend some time gearing up by learning about the materials and what they will do together, etc. In other words, I play with them; sometimes lots of them. I have to learn what the materials will do before I can make them do what I want.

Simple mosaic on top of a garden wall.

And that’s the space I’m in now, and that’s why I save so many things. I never know what I might do with them. I never know when the urge is going to strike, the artist’s muse can strike at any time, unpredictably. I like to be prepared. And it’s hard to be prepared when you don’t exactly know what you will need!

Just before the storm, it struck me that when we begin living on a boat and cruising around, I really have nothing to offer others that’s worth much in terms of selling or bartering for goods or services. I mean, Mike can fix anything electrical or computer oriented. He’s also pretty good at engines. He’s a guy’s guy when it comes to those kinds of things. In his career he started out in electronics and ended up writing computer applications. He’s all over that stuff.

I, on the other hand, am a psychotherapist. I can tell you right now that I am NOT going to be offering those services to other cruisers. Those days will be gone by the time we get to cast off. Cruisers who need therapy will be referred to the local village shaman. So I need something else to offer. What do I actually enjoy doing that might be worth something to others? And is there something I could even sell through this website that might make a little money for the cruising kitty? And I came up with a nice little idea that involves making certain things with wool felt.

Dale Chihuly glass, photo taken at the Bridge of Glass in Tacoma, then played with on the computer.

So now I’m fully invested in the development of this idea and I’m excited to play with all the pretty colors of wool roving. I want to use the wool roving with different fabrics to see what works for this idea, so I NEED that mosquito netting now and it is long gone. Frankly, I was just about fit to be tied when I remembered that not only would it be perfect for the experimenting I want to do, but it is even the right color and there would have been plenty of it, giving me a good supply to work with if my idea bore fruit. My knickers are really in a twist about it. It’s not that I cannot find more, it’s that I already had it once and it feels like a considerable waste of resources to go out and find/buy more.

Now when I face getting rid of more stuff I’m going to do so with a little fear and loathing because I would much rather use things I already own than try to go find them again. This is the same argument that allows me to keep things that I currently have no use for, which completely flies in the face of the ‘purging’ mentality. And the ‘if you ‘ve had it for more than one year and haven’t used it…’ rule does not apply here. Frankly, that rule just never applies to craft supplies. But who knows what will become material for crafting? You can never tell. I had that mosquito netting for at least 2 years. Come to think of it, there’s a sarong I wish I had kept, and a couple of silk scarves as well.

Rats. It’s going to take me some time to untwist my knickers over this.

Cement birdbath, the product of many hours of play.

The Doldrums of Winter

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Melissa

When the power is out, there is time to do things like build a Snow Queen.

My usual routine of posting something every few days has been decidedly interrupted by a winter storm that I have determined must be called ‘the doldrums of winter’. After posting how lovely the place looked with all the snow, I thoughtlessly wished it would stay around for awhile. Never did I realize how my powers of manifestation would be abused! We entered into a storm cycle that left us literally withOUT power for 4 days, with a large hole in our kitchen window, and a yard that looks like a cyclone thundered through. And the snow did, indeed, linger through all of this.

It is this time without electricity, during the darkness and cold of winter, that I am referring to as the ‘doldrums’. Sailors will recognize that term as referring to the areas of low pressure around the equator that are famous for having little to no wind. Sailboats can sit for days, or even weeks, until the wind, their source of power, returns. I’m imagining some sailors have been driven insane by this waiting.

I’m reading Miles Hordern’s book Sailing the Pacific, his story of sailing from New Zealand to Chile and back by himself. In his book, he describes his experience of the doldrums thus:

” There was nothing to do. Or perhaps, I could do nothing. I turned on the radio, but its talk was of a world I no longer knew. A book was hopeless: I could seldom read a sentence before my concentration dissolved. …Again and again I found myself climbing to the deck….Each time I hoped that finally there might be something there…..But each time there was nothing.”

I believe this aptly describes Mike’s behavior during this brief time of living without electricity and internet service while the storm raged on. The word ‘raged’ here means the sound of exploding limbs, falling trees, and continued snow. Mike was actively involved in ‘waiting’, which everyone knows is a verb of action. He waited at the window, watching. He waited outside, until I got just a little upset at him for wandering around underneath the deadly trees and called to him in a rather loud voice to come inside. He talked on the cell phone to our neighbors to coordinate experiences and wonder out loud when the power would be restored, when another limb might hit the house, whether a tree would fall. Would our little enclave of a few houses warrant the attention of the power company? Did they KNOW we were powerless? How long would we have to wait? Days? Weeks? The stillness that was usually my husband was nowhere to be found. Perhaps men are like this when their homes are threatened.

The remains of the birch tree.

I, on the other hand, was the essence of feminine patience. I sat placidly by the window, doing crafts by lamplight, occasionally getting up to stoke the fire. It was as though I was gestating in some way, although what I would be giving birth to is beyond me at this point. I hope I am creating here a dramatic enough picture. The exploding trees interested me in a sad kind of way, but I felt deeply the fact that I had absolutely no power to do anything about the storm. It would do its devilry to our trees and property, and then we would clean up later. My birch tree was snapped in two pieces. I barely batted an eyelash. My smoke trees were smashed to smithereens by huge branches. I will recover. We were warm, dry, fed, and together. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs had never been better met. It’s true that should a tree land on our house, we could be injured, but worrying about it would not change that. Why this logic generally escapes me when it comes, say, to my children, is beyond me. Still, I sat smugly enjoying the slowness of life.

A hummingbird on my frozen rhododendron. We kept our feeders full during the storm.

In fact, when the electricity came back on yesterday, I was a bit disconcerted at first. And then I felt a little mournful. It’s not that I don’t like having the convenience because, after all, I am not crazy. But I do love those times when life is pretty simple and small. Having a power outage makes life very small and contained, and only the basic things are important. Now that the power is back, we live large again. In some ways, this is unfortunate.