The High Price of Normal

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
- Ellen Goodman

This quote so accurately describes my feelings about my life right now. Granted - I think I have taken care of some of it.

The clothes that I wear to work either come as gifts from friends, hand-me-downs, holiday gift cards, or the thrift store. People are sincerely amazed at the items I can find in the second hand stores.

Driving through traffic is something that I do every day now. This is a relatively new development, but a necessary one to deal with the last item. My commute is fifty miles one way and it takes me about an hour. That is two hours of my day that could really be spent doing something more productive. I have tried to put the time to good use and frequently take care of pleasantries - calls to friends and family that would otherwise not be made given the high frequency of chaos on either end of the commute. The gas money, though - ugh. Even if prices were to recede to a meager $3 per gallon - commuting alone at 25 mpg I would spend $60 per week on gas. This does not include trips to the grocery store or to pick up the kids or go to games at the highschool. And gas is not $3 per gallon. And my only operational vehicle at the moment gets 15 mpg. Which is why I am currently relying on the benevolence of my best friend and driving her car to and from the city every day.

I own two vehicles - A 1995 Jeep Wrangler with an I6 (15 mpg) and 1995 Eagle Talon TSI Turbo (28 mpg). They are both paid for. Sort of. My parents loaned me the money for the Jeep last year. When I moved to the ranch this summer I bought the Talon with a loan from my company profit sharing account ($60/paycheck to pay it back). Knowing the issues with the timing belt on a vehicle with an interference head (if the belt breaks it wrecks your valves = new engine) I immediately took the vehicle after paying $3500 for it and spent another $1200 having the timing belt replaced ($850) and some other work to get it into good shape. I knew this was imperative considering the 100+ miles per day I would be putting it through.

The shop that did the work also replaced the crank shaft seal and some other things as it was leaking some oil. When I drove it away it was running rough - which it wasn't when I took it in. So I took it back. They said that the idle error control motor was bad and needed to be replaced. I asked if it would hurt to put this off - they said no.

Soon after the car wouldn't remain running and I started driving the Jeep with considerable difference in fuel mileage. When I had the money for the part my roommate put it in. 24 hours later the car stopped in a major way. On examination sll of the belts were turning - except of course for the timing belt. Returning it to the shop has so far been fruitless. They say that the crank shaft was bent and it wrecked the timing belt and blew the engine. AND that even though they worked on both the crank shaft and the timing belt this couldn't POSSIBLY be a product of their work. *heavy sigh*

I have been trying to contact the owner of the shop since last week. He has not called me back. So the cars - I do own them outright. I have the titles. I don't have to pay for full coverage insurance - for all the good it's doing me.

The house - unfortunately I do still own it. And it is sitting vacant all the the time. My last roommate moved out at the beginning of September. I still have a few things that I have to move out of there. The lender has it on the list for foreclosure. So - you have to ask yourself at these times...

Was it ever worth it?

To work this hard. To have the house. To have the cars. To try and make it. To kiss ass and bend over and sell out on a daily basis to... do what? Keep the economy going?

I have a lot of anger about all of this. I've decided that I really need to take a serious look at my life - in spreadsheet format - and calculate the overhead required to live this way. How much money am I actually making? I don't know. I really don't. And that's disturbing. Sure - I know what my paycheck says. I know what my annual gross income is. But what I don't know for sure is the price of doing business. What is the cost to me and mine?

I'll focus on figuring that out this week. I think it may give me some answers. It might not be pretty, but I'll bet it will be real.

Normal is not something I ever wanted to be. It is certainly not anything that I want to pay for.

Blossoming

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
- Anais Nin

I've been struggling to begin posting again. As it turns out finding the door is the easy part. Walking through the darned thing is painfully difficult.

Summing up 2008 - well that could be difficult as well. I have decided however to adopt a new motto in writing.

JUST DO IT.

It doesn't have to be good. It just has to get done.

So, here I am. I've walked through one hell of a door. I'm standing on the other side of it and my head is still spinning.

In June my husband and I made the decision to part ways. As it turns out no amount of therapy will ever change the fundamental essence of a human being. Trying to make someone into the person you want to be with is a worthless endeavor. I don't regret what I learned in the eleven year relationship, but I am saddened at the amount of misery and hurt that we were able to visit upon each other in that time.

The biggest binding factor in staying for so long was my fear of losing my step-kids. It turns out that when I decided to take the leap everything fell into place. I keep wondering what I did right to have things turn out in my favor against such odds and in such an unconventional situation. I approached my step-kids, my husband, and the biological mother with the same proposition - let me keep the kids.

I had made arrangements to move the three of us to my best friend's ranch. Over the last year the two families already living on the ranch have become the family that I've always wanted. I have found the peace and love in their presence that I had nearly ceased believing existed. The kids have spent many weekends with me there - and they had found the same comfort and sense of belonging that I had. So with the two of them in agreement, and the blessing of their parents, the three of us have made our move 40 miles north of the area we have called home for the last decade.

Please, don't think for a moment that I am giving up the reigning title as "wicked stepmother". They still laugh when I say it, but I haven't made things any easier on them. Without the constant household struggles that we have all endured I am able to focus alot of attention on them, their homework, grades, chores, and behavior that I didn't previously have the energy to devote to those areas. And they have four other adult figures that really don't give them much room to shirk the higher level of expectations. And yet still - they endeavor - and maintain that this is where they want to be.

They both just started their freshman year in high school. I am not a fool - and I understand that they may decide in the near future that this is too hard. They could very well decide to take the easy road - and as I have no legal claim to them there is little I could do to stop them. I'm not letting that scare me though. I'm not going to back off and make it easy to keep them from wanting to leave. They are 14 and 15 years old - and their decisions now are their own in a much broader sense than most of their peers.

They aren't angels either. The lengths that I have already had to go to in the first two months of their HS careers trying to get and keep them on task have been exhausting. I just have to maintain my faith that in the end this will for the best. Any success that they achieve now will help forge the path to a happier future for them. And if I were to do any less to help them I would have regrets that I'm not willing to carry through the rest of my life.

So now I find myself a different woman than I was in the spring of 2008. Autumn frost is settling over the landscape and I am having to take an accounting of my harvest through the past season. I believe that I have come out ahead - possibly for the first time in my life. As I look down the road towards winter I believe that I have laid in the emotional provisions that I need to make it to the next season, the next planting, the next door.

I owe many updates to the information that I've posted previously - and I will get to them soon. For now this song is running through my head:

A bear climbed over the mountain
A bear climbed over the mountain
A bear climbed over the mountain
To see what he could see.

He saw another mountain
He saw another mountain
He saw another mountain
And what do you think he did?

He climbed another mountain
He climbed another mountain
He climbed another mountain
And what do you think he saw?

He saw another mountain
He saw another mountain
He saw another mountain

And what do you think he did?

I don't think I'll ever stop finding doors. At least I hope not.

"Give me liberty, or give me death."

Liberty.

This word has been on my mind for several weeks now. Following my introduction to Mr. Thoreau I realized that while this word had the power to evoke strong emotions in me I didn't have the ability to convey this concept to anyone. I had gone on to re-read the Declaration of Independence and at that point took it to heart that it was not only within my abilities but felt a deep responsibility to understand the concepts that drove the founders of our nation to their greatest cause - liberty.

"My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty."
~ Samuel Francis Smith

I like to imagine that at some point in our history this might have been true. Perhaps in the beginning when those who had been driven to take arms and put their lives on the line in pursuit of this ideal were still alive this concept may have lived in the hearts of those that governed. It seems that the depth of understanding has all but dissipated in the hearts of the governed now. I wonder who of all the people I meet each day can define the term liberty - even for themselves. I wonder which of them would be willing to put themselves on the line to defend it in truth.

I know that even in the beginning there were few who actually took up arms for the cause. Most people did what people do. They put their heads down and waited to align themselves with the victor. I walk among them daily knowing that at the sound of our anthem they will place their hands upon their hearts, they will say that they are proud to be Americans, they will wave their flags and sing along to the songbook of our heartland. They will not however open their eyes to the slow deterioration of their rights in any way that might halt the erosion.

I have to ask myself - how am I any different? I have these thoughts in my head. I don't ascribe these thoughts to those who walk seemingly blind through their days, but at the end of the day I know in my heart having these thoughts make me more guilty than any who do not.

"To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice."
~ Confucious

Patrick Henry's speech from which the famous quote, "Give me liberty, or give me death," is credited with inspiring even those to whom we associate the love of liberty - the likes of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were in attendance as he spoke those words aloud publicly. I wonder what all of them would say were they to see the form that our government has now taken. I wonder what we have now by comparison, and what level of dissatisfaction is necessary before death is preferred to a lack of liberty. I wonder at the strength of this ideal for those who did not have it - to drive them to such lengths to attain it. I wonder at those who would chip away at the heart of what made this nation great, and how we as a people continue to turn a blind eye. I wonder at my place in this world, and what I can do to relieve this feeling that I am not living up to my responsibility to defend at the very least my own personal liberty.

I will be expanding on these thoughts more in future posts. This subject deserves some sincere meditation. Thinking about the ideal of liberty, it's cost and preservation have driven me to distraction lately. I know that I need to explore and expand my own depth of understanding, and a single post will not do this.

For now I'll leave with this quote that I have been pondering:

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."
~ Thomas Jefferson

A Step Forward

So...

After cycling wildly for some time now between three options for the house, refinancing, selling, and bankruptcy, I've finally made a definitive step forward. Thanks to Brandie.

Refinancing had the potential of rolling all of the bills into the mortgage. If we could take out the equity into the house we could get out from under our debt. Then we were considering whether to attempt a sale after that or rent the property. The problem with renting the property is that we probably couldn't do it for the amount of the mortgage payment which would have left us in the hole every month. With the country on the brink of recession we were of course faced with a potential future foreclosure, ending up upside down on the value, and eventually the possibilty of having to file for bankruptcy anyway. I did, however, put a foot forward in that direction several weeks ago. I called up, Joey, who had managed our first mortgage on the house when we purchased it. Unfortunately he came back a few days ago telling me that he believed they "might" be able to get an interest rate more than a full point lower than what we have at the moment, "if" they could squeak our credit past the underwriter, but there was no chance of taking out the equity in our property to pay off the bills.

Selling right now seems an overwhelming prospect. The house market looks grim. I'm not seeing the rampant "For Sale" signs that were as abundant as dandelions a year ago. I feel now like all those people had there finger on a pulse I was unaware of. The upside is that the comparative home sales in our area run about 50K more than what we owe on the house. At that rate, if we were ABLE to sell it, we would have enough money to pay off the bills and the possibility of a little left over.

Bankruptcy has been on my mind a lot lately. For all it's pitfalls it sounds like a loop-hole in the machine. I can only imagine that it exists because of the rate of recidivism. People get out from under their bills and immediately start accruing them anew. I know that at this point in my life that wouldn't be the case. I'm done with plastic. I'm done with unsecured loans. I'm really done with the secured ones as well - aside from property. As far as the damage to my credit? Well - I figure that really only matters if I'm concerned about my place and status inside the machine. I have friends who have been offering assistance in this area, and have made it clear that you don't need a lawyer to get it done. This sounded hopeful - kind of like an open door to walk through. The easy way out.

I've never been much for the easy way out. It may be a short-coming, but I am who I am. Bankruptcy? Backburner. Last option when all others are exhausted.

With the new information on the refinance I know that it really isn't an option. I just have to maintain involvement in the process because my mortgage guy is running interference with my creditors at the moment.

Yesterday Brandie and I had a long, honest, and explicit conversation relating to our dreams for an intentional community, on getting living arrangements secured, and on getting the farm to a productive state. We've both been dreaming wistfully for some time now, and we both know that this will work if we can just find a way to pool our resources. We talked about the fears that were holding us back. We talked about the dreams that were pushing us forward. We talked possibilities. We talked practical matters.

Suddenly this became a solid and palpable thing. With the chasm in front of us we held hands and each stretched our faith a little bit. We haven't made the leap yet. We haven't thrown ourselves into the grand canyon of uncertainty. But our feet are out there hovering now.

"You've got to sell the house," she said.
"I know," I replied. "Give me the contact information for your realtor friend and I'll start now."

A gust of wind blew through my mind and light spilled through the dislodged cobwebs from the direction of the door. I emailed the realtor and she responded with a request for the property address. A step in the right direction.

We talked about living arrangements on the farm. The potential for moving their motor home back onto the property as a temporary fix for my family. We talked about my vehicle - my beloved Jeep - and she pointed out the fact that the gas for commuting was going to kill me. I told her I've been stalking Geo Metros on craigslist for some time now. Once we are out from under the mortgage that won't be an obstacle.

All these things had been hanging in the air for months - the trust and friendship between us building to a point where we could say them out loud. I can quite suddenly feel her strong hands helping me dislodge this heavy weight on my shoulders. I've been carrying it for so long I had forgotten how tall I can feel without it.

As if the universe were in complete agreement with these steps the day wore on with new developments. I received an email from work that they are selling several of the courier vehicles at work in a couple of weeks. Toyota Corollas. They have more than 200K miles on them, but they have impeccable maintenance records, and they are selling them for around $500. I put my name in for one. If they have too much interest there will be a sealed bid. We'll see what happens.

Then last night the frame for a yurt was delivered to my house. A friend that owed us money from several years ago was going to sell it in order to pay us back. We told her that instead we would take it in exchange for the debt, which we had actually written off ages ago. This was at least six months ago.

In the midst of considering the options for our future domicile - the frame for a nomadic home shows up in my driveway. Another affirmation that we are stepping in the right direction. The feeling for me that the chasm only appears deep and dark, and that all of the resources that we will need are waiting at the bottom if we will but let ourselves fall into the waiting arms of our future.

Still, I have to come up with the expendable income to purchase the vehicle, and assemble the yurt and come up with a skin and a floor for it. I have to stay on top of the realtor business, and get my house together to sell. And then comes the part about putting our life back in boxes - something we didn't think we were ever going to do again when we bought this place.

But I can feel the forward movement. I can feel the breeze from the door and the light is getting brighter.

There is so much relief on the horizon.

Ideas

Last night I cam home from a weekend of working out at the ranch with a half gallon of fresh goats milk, a carton of 18 eggs, and a lot of ideas.

A few weeks ago I ran across a web site that has really stuck with me. Unfortunately I didn't save the link and now it has disappeared into the vast landscape of the internet. It was talking about what you need to do and know before you decide to start a farm. It talked about practical matters of knowing what your land, mineral, and water rights are before you buy a property, and it talked about the biggest pitfall being people buying a farm for it's idealism without knowing first what they are going to produce.

I've been wracking my brain ever since. There's been a lot of talk among the group of running a dairy. We've considered livestock for meat. We've looked into harvesting fiber, but the take on that everywhere I've read is that it's a tough sell. You have to produce a huge quantity before you can make any kind of a meager living on it.

Bryan grew up a wheat farmer, and Brandie grew up a cattle rancher - so there is a lot of practical experience in the group as far as dealing with machinery, animal husbandry, planting, growing, harvesting... You name it and these two seem to pull information out of their brains in a deluge. I'm always so delighted when Bryan starts spouting off information like an old-time almanac. Early last fall I commented that the locusts were singing in the city. Without missing a beat or taking a breath he replied that the first frost would be in about 6 weeks. I didn't have the wherewithal to mark it on the calendar, but I'm sure he was right.

This weekend my body started waking up to the fact that it is spring. We rose early to milk the two goats that have freshened, fed the little guy, ran errands in town, and cleaned the corral hauling tons of horse manure to the compost piled in the garden. The sun was shining and with temperatures in the 60's I bared my shoulders in appreciation and was paid with a wicked sunburn. This is a ritual I'm familiar with. I just don't usually get my first sun of the season in March. We finished up the day building a dresser/desk for their 8 year old daughter out of discarded water bed parts. We filled our bellies at dinner with no guilt for the calories. We'd burned our fair share in the work of the day, and after making a half gallon of milk replacer I moved on to the late evening feeding of the little guy before sleep came fast and hard.

The weather turned chilly on Sunday. I had help with the early morning feeding of the little guy and we headed out to milk goats again. The hard sleep was still heavy on our heads and Maggie eventually grew tired of my in-experienced tugging. Bryan took over and while trying to get the last dribbles from her she decided she'd had enough and stuck her foot in the bucket.

After some expletives we released the babies to their mother's milk and headed inside where I was given my first lesson in pasteurization. They heated the milk to 161 degrees in order to make the milk safe for consumption. They only do this when they get a foot in the bucket. The rest of the time we just filter it and refrigerate.

With a spring chill unwilling to lift and the urge in our bodies to move, the spring cleaning bug bit into us and we scrubbed the kitchen down. In the middle of this, and I'm sure spurred on by the foot-in-bucket incident, Bryan took a break from cleaning to go fix the milking stand.

While many missions were accomplished - we unfortunately did not get around to starting the dig for the cistern. Perhaps next weekend the weather will hold long enough to get through more of the work at hand. Still with my skin stinging from the sun, my finger cut, and a splinter embedded deep in my hand - my body is glad of the warmth and the movement and the productivity.

After getting home last night, though, I discovered quickly that I miss the crying of the little guy, the warmth of his body in my arms, and the sound of his quick breathing in my ear. I miss the way he would find me in the kitchen and try to nurse on the leg of my blue jeans telling me he was ready for another bottle, and his antics as he leaps and pronks about slowly but proudly conquering more of the living room furniture.

On returning home last night the room-mate pulled out a movie he had found and thought I would enjoy, "The Real Dirt on Farmer John". I thought it was going to be a theatrical account from the write-up, but it turned out to be a documentary of one man with unusual ideas trying to save his family farm, succeeding, failing, and succeeding again. Repeat as needed I suppose to get the full picture. I laughed and cried. I was delighted with his efforts, and then horrified at the obstacles pitted against him. I highly recommend watching it if you've got any bit of freak inside you that seems all too entwined with the love of dirt between your fingers.

Life Happens

Frito and Agnes

Friday I took some time off from worrying about the state of the world and my own little part in it. Instead I headed up to Steamboat Springs with Brandie and Bryan (the ranch folks). Both of them are fire performers and there was a gathering arranged at the hot springs up there. After a three hour drive and a fine dinner with friends we headed to the springs.

The pools are lined with rock and the water hot and steaming. It hung in the air thick until disturbed by the eddies of air that would breeze through from time to time. In a main performance area the performers cycled in and out spinning poi and staff, dancing with their fire hoops, and there was even someone with a rope dart. That was entertaining even if a little frightening as he shot the flaming dart out over my head.

So, with the full moon shining on the vernal equinox it was lovely to be surrounded by such strong representations of the four elements in the company of dear friends.

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Bryan and I spent some time discussing again our distaste for money. Bartering has been a frequent topic of conversation. Recently Brandie was approached by some folks that wanted to trade pigs for fiber goats. Bryan was gleeful at the prospect. I started thinking about the fact that I don't have many assets to barter with. It's interesting how much crap we can collect that has little to no value in trade. I've been looking around for the sorts of bartering deals that are out there. Turns out that craigslist has a designation for bartering deals. I've only looked in Denver so far, but it was educational. There a lot of people willing to trade services for services, and some services for goods.

This all has me thinking that I really need to brainstorm some ideas on value. What value can I provide? Not just in trade, but in a community. What do I have to bring to the table?

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On Saturday my husband returned from a week in Atlanta on business. I experienced what I can term palpable relief at his return. He takes care of so much around here that I tend to forget about. Having him gone was a good reminder and I've been working hard the last few days to make sure he knows how much he is appreciated.

Saturday night my daughter had several friends over for a slumber party. Her birthday is coming up on April 1st and she wanted to celebrate now as the begin Spring Break. They CALL it a slumber party - but really it's a we're NOT going to slumber party. They were up all night and had a good time. It was nice to meet some of her friends and to see that her choices in people aren't exactly conventional. They all showed up dressed funky with crazy hair and good attitudes. They exhibited their talents in theater in and music and the TV for the most part was the furthest thing from their minds. I love that she is drawn to people who aren't trying to fit in, that are also respectful of each other and can speak intelligently.

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Annie's Kids

Sunday was slow getting up and about. Brandie and Bryan had spent the night in town with us. Their daughter was at the slumber party and Brandie had to be to work downtown at noon. Around 2 pm we got the call that Annie (the goat) had given birth to twins. One of them was a little small and not keeping up with mama. We needed to get out there quickly to take care of him.

I rushed the girls home and doubled back to get Bryan, his two daughters, and my own (who desperately wanted to see the baby goats). It's a 45 minute drive and sure enough - this little guy was half the size of his sister. I was, of course, overwhelmed by the cute factor of the babies. It's my first time seeing baby goats - new baby goats as opposed to young ones - and they were even better, and tinier, and softer, and cuter than I imagined.

Maggie the Goat
Maggie (the milk goat) birthed her kids on Monday. I'm hoping I can make it out on Wednesday to see them!

Last year - knowing my dream of owning goats - Brandie offered me the opportunity to go in halves with her on Agnes and Frito (photo at top). A little more than a week ago Frito miscarried her first kid. It affected me more than I had expected, but she seems to be getting along well enough. We are hoping that Agnes has been bred. She and Frito have been in with Forrest (the buck) all winter. I'm hoping to see some babies soon. And MILK.

My goodness! My first experience with fresh goats milk last year was dreamy. Agnes was freshened when we got her, but that ended quickly. Not quickly enough to keep me from developing a craving for fresh goats milk though. I can't wait til we can start milking again.

Of course, Annie is producing like crazy - so Brandie is considering starting to milk her this season again. Mmmmmmm.... I can't wait.

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There's more - oh, so much more to talk about. But if I wait til I have it all down I'll never get anything posted. Drat.

Pleased To Meet You, Mr. Thoreau

Sometimes my own ignorance astounds me.

One cannot, evidently, make a single lap through green-living and sustainability on the internet without running into some reference to Henry David Thoreau. Much to my own embarrassment I must admit that until today I had never read anything by this man. Not one word. While surfing some random blogs this morning I ran into this post. At the end she quotes him:

"Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine."

I stopped dead in my tracks. There was that damned machine again, and this man Henry knew about it. He knew about it more than one hundred and fifty years ago. How could it be that I have never read anything written by Thoreau?

Procrastination.

Years ago, my freshman year of highschool in fact, I had some passing interest in reading his work. I asked for a copy of "Walden" for Christmas. Under the tree, wrapped in pretty paper and hardcover bound was "Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau". Somehow, though, time slips away from me. I got busy with whatever it is that girls get busy with in those young days, and Mr. Thoreau was relegated to the bookshelf and my ever growing list of books I'll get around to reading someday.

This morning I was overcome by my interest in this man again. I looked him up and read a little about his life. Amazingly it all felt incredibly current - incredibly relevant. I followed a link to read his essay Civil Disobedience. I felt like this man was in my head - expressing thoughts I've had no words for.

At lunch I went to the bookshelf - determined now that I should read this book that has languished for so long. I opened the cover and saw the inscription in my mother's hand - "To Sasha. XOXO. M&D. 1988"

1988? 20 years? Madness. Could it really be? Have I been on this earth long enough to say that I have been carrying a book around for 20 years? Let alone without ever reading it? Suddenly the list of books - the stacks - the piles of books that I have been putting off reading seem tragic. Their dust covers are just that - covered in dust. What in the world have I been doing with my time?

This world exhausts me. By choice, by ignorance, and finally by procrastination I have given the last 17 years to the machine. All of my energy, all of my spirit, all of my days - each minute that I could have spent in the open air among the leaves and grass standing in the sun - they wail at me for the loss of all this time. My life, each precious moment, each breath that I should have treasured I have instead spent feeding the machine.

I have spent countless hours in contemplation of my misery. My thoughts towards happiness - "positive self-talk" - telling myself that it is me and that it is in me to find happiness in the place I find myself in the world. I've told myself time and again that where I am and what I am doing is only incidental the breath I am breathing and the life I am living. I have told myself that I should be happy to be alive. I have made lists of what I should be happy for. I have made lists of the ways in which I am serving the world. All of these things I have done in an effort to persuade my spirit toward silence and acquiescence - convincing myself that some peace could be found if only I could find my resolve in this life to just "be".

RUBBISH!!! All of it. Wasted time. That is all that is has been.

I will not deny that from these years I have gleaned some joy. That joy has been mixed with the sorrow that life brings. Existence is not a flat-line. There will be bad times to go with the good. Still - those times that I recall have all to do with family and with love - with life and death... none that I can recall with any pleasure are tied to the machine. For the machine I have hog-tied my spirit and thrown it in the closet and made my way like a zombie through days of misery - all the while my spirit crying in the closet for want of wind, and sun, and rain...

and freedom.

The words that I HAVE read - those of Walt Whitman, Joseph Campbell, Richard Bach, and others - are in my head this day. All of them cry out against the machine. All of them tell me that it is my choice. All of them tell me to live my life and treasure my moments. All of them speak of freedom. Let me be reminded this day that freedom is a choice, and that the way in which I spend each moment of my life, my energy, and spirit is up to me.

How then does one reconcile integrity with misery? There are debts that must be paid and therefore work that must be done. Please hear my heavy sigh as I resign myself to this fact. There is no escape today, but perhaps fuel added to propel me towards the door.

The Dream

I'm not sure if the dream is in my head - or if the dream is beyond the door. It is incredibly detailed, and yet hazy in my mind. The details exist in a construct with fuzzy edges and filled with uncertainty. I figure there is no time like the present to figure out exactly what I do know about the dream - about what I think is beyond that door.

I know that I don't want to live my life in a box (aka office). I miss the sunshine and the sweet air outside the city. When the sun is shining it takes everything I have to push past the door to the building I work in. I have no windows in there. There are only a few in the entire building. It's a converted warehouse.

I know that I want to continue being productive - perhaps be even MORE productive. It's not that I don't want to work. It's that I want my work to have meaning. This doesn't mean it has to be on a grand scale of making the world a better place, although I believe that somehow it will. It means that when you plant the garden you know that the purpose it serves is to feed your family. When you shear a goat - it is so you can spin the fiber and knit a hat that will keep a loved one's head warm. When you are hauling hay to the sheep it is to fatten them up to fill the freezer. When you are digging the hole for the new cistern you are working towards improving the quality of life for those using it.

True that writing is my passion, and has not necessarily been all that productive. It is work that feeds my soul though - like sunshine and air. My hope is that someday it will be an asset to me. Until then I will keep doing it regardless.

This post feels a little hazy and ill-defined to me. There are snippets that I can convey, but the big picture is a difficult one to tune in sharply.

When asked I used to say that my dream was to move to the mountains, build an earthship, raise milk goats to produce gourmet goat cheese, and write books. This still isn't that far off from the truth. As life progresses though, I meet new people, learn new things, see new ways of existing and these all incorporate.

Right now - and I suppose this could change - but right now...

My thoughts have been turned towards intentional communities. Life becomes easier when you pool the assets of the group to accomplish a common goal. This is - in my mind - another expression of communal living. I've seen it work on a small scale at Burning Man. I've seen it working in a different aspect out at the ranch. There are two families there that work together to keep that place going - to create a different life. Still - they are working hard and the progress is slow. Spending time out there and working beside them has given me a taste of possibility mixed with the bitterness of reality. They are all still working jobs in the real world. They are all still fighting to make ends meet. What seems different is that at the end of a day of shoveling, or shearing, or butchering, the feeling in your soul is that you have made progress - that you have taken care of you and yours in a frame of reference that most people just don't experience anymore.

My dream starts to clarify a little more as I write.

I know that I want to own some land outright. Not necessarily on my own - but barring other options I would settle for that. I would prefer to own it as a group - perhaps in a coop capacity. One of my deeply held beliefs is that as long as there is still a mortgage hanging about the machine still has it's hooks in you. I don't want to be in debt to the machine anymore.

I know that I want to produce all of my own food. I was a vegetarian for a year when I realized that I shouldn't be eating anything I wasn't willing to look in the eye. This isn't anything that I apply to anyone else, although as an experience in connection to your own life and well-being, I highly recommend it. Spending time at the ranch have given me the opportunity to connect in this way. I want to feel the land and understand it. I want to have a relationship with it. I want to feed it and care for it and in turn have it feed my family.

I want to get off the grid. Part of this is yet another separation from the machine. Part of it is an act of conservation and sustainability. I want to know that my power and water needs are not dependent on the machine. I want to know that my power and water needs are working in harmony with the natural world around me. I want to exist in a place in my own mind where I appreciate every day where the power and the water come from. I want to be connected to it.

I want to spend my days working beside my loved ones. I want to see the happy face of my husband as we accomplish the tasks that will take us to the next season, to the next year. I want my children to feel the earth between their toes, and I want them to go to bed tired after working hard, and to feel good about themselves, their abilities, and their accomplishments. I want them to know that their work directly impacts the well-being of their family. I want them to have the confidence that comes with those things.

All of these things seem pretty conceptual to me. It is a vague construct of a life I hope to be living sometime in the foreseeable future. Flushing out these ideas into a workable and livable reality is going to be quite a task. For now, the dream will just have to live inside of me. For now, I must attend to the practical matters that will eventually get me there. For now, I'll have to settle for the smaller scale dreams I think I can accomplish - things I can do in the city. Start composting. Buy angora rabbits to harvest their fiber. Grow potatoes in the giant pots that have gone unused since my ficus trees died several years ago. Start getting rid of "stuff".

Oh, and did I forget? SELL THE HOUSE!

It figures that the minute I finished writing the last post my mortgage guy called me back. He needed a little more information. He is working on the refinance that would pay off my bills. My concern is that a new mortgage deal might require me to stay in the house for another two to three years. I already know that my answer at that point is a definitive no. I'm not tying up any more of my time or money in this endeavor than I absolutely have to. I guess we'll see.

---

Afterthought

My horoscope for today made me laugh:

"It may feel as if you are being split in two as home issues pull you one way and the Moon-Saturn conjunction in your 10th House of Career lures you the other way. Even with this heightened emotional tension, you still have the ability to know what needs to be done and you can do it. Don't waste time dreaming about a better life; make it happen now."
(By Rick Levine)

Dreams Meet Reality

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”
- Joseph Cambell

While my mind is busy reeling with ideas for land, subsistance, getting off the grid - I am having to fight for control and reign it in. Always in the past the dreams have overwhelmed me and I have grown frustrated, despairing at the distance to the mark. With any project, any goal, we all want to get to the fun part. I'm not saying that living a different life is going to be easy, but getting rid of this one really is the hardest part.

The temptation is to dump it all and walk away. Unfortunately, I realize to be successful in this endeavor, the practical matters have to be dealt with first. My brain is reeling with dreams of the future, but my hands are tied to matters of the present. This is where it always gets sticky. This is where I always end up sitting down and giving up. It always seems too daunting.

Ahhh, grasshopper. Do the words of your father sing in your mind?
"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

The first step is really difficult. I've known what needs to be done for a very long time. I've hesitated for many reasons. One of them has been the emotional state of my husband. It's not necessarily that he disagrees with me, but every time I see the fearful look in his eyes I hesitate - my wish not to bring him any discomfort leaving me in a stale-mate.

We have to sell the house.

With a mortgage near $245,000.00 at 7% fixed our total payment every month exceeds $1,800.00. Any time I look at the math my spirit crumbles under the weight. Then the questions come - as I've been told they should. Where will we live? This one binds me consistently. How are you planning for your future? How much will you get for it? Do you even have any equity to get you through to the next step? Scary questions.

Then, as if Congress has taken up residence in my head, I start getting bright ideas. Well - why don't you pull the equity out before you sell it to pay off the other bills? Tying into this task a whole other twist that seems to have crippled the horse before it gets out the gate.

I've tried with three different mortgage brokers over the last few years. As if the universe has other plans I can't ever seem to get them on board with my idea. True - our credit is trashed. We have a bit of debt - it's not insurmountable though. I believe it's actually well below the national average for a U.S. family.

Still - I keep getting all twisted up in the details. In fact, I've spent the last week waiting for an answer from a mortgage broker - he won't return my messages. I wish he would just call and give me that monosyllabic denial. "No," would be better than silence.

So - at some point over the weekend it dawns on me. Quit it. Just stop. Stop worrying about what comes next. You KNOW that nothing else is going to happen until you sell the house. You can't move, you can't pay on your debt, you won't get any closer to the door until you remove the noose named mortgage from your neck.

Again - an urge from the deepest parts of me to commit an act of faith. I know deep within that even without a house I will wake up tomorrow. I will take another breath. I will find a way to go on for yet another day. Life kicks and screams to perpetuate itself. In the deepest parts of depression when people pray for death the next breath still comes, the urge to eat and drink conquers that dark desire and we persist. We go on.

The minute that my mind latched onto this idea - that other part of me - the one that is tied to the machine began screaming at me. The house is a mess. There's a hole in the ceiling. The yard is a disaster. The paint is peeling. These things must be fixed before you can sell.

Coldly my spirit offers a reprieve. "No," it says. "You don't have to do any of those things. You just have to call a realtor and put it on the market."

I suppose that I don't even have to do that. I could just put a sign in the front yard that says, "For Sale." It really is that easy. It's mine. It's my property. I know that the value doesn't belong to me, but the right to sell it does. Still - a realtor does sound like the easiest way. I have to start somewhere. I just have to start. I just have to pick up the phone. Will I do it today? Will I start the ball rolling forward? Will I tell the door in no uncertain terms that I am approaching?

This is the first step. This is the reality. Perhaps it's scary because it does bring me closer to the door. It brings the unknown into my life. Uncertainty makes me uncomfortable. But there is no other way. This has to be done before anything else can happen. I have a lot riding on faith here. I believe this single act will bring a measure of momentum that I might not be able to stop. Am I sure? Am I sure this is the direction I want? Do I really want to walk through the door? There is a beam of light coming from that direction and sweet wind that smells of life outside the smoggy world of the machine. It calls to me.

I choose to follow it.

A Little Light

Two years ago my husband and I stumbled into the Burning Man community. Most days I would like to think that this is a side note to the journey I've been on. Our experience has been tumultuous at best. This isn't to say that it has been without benefits.

The path to Burning Man is different for everyone. Ours has been fraught with both joy and intense sorrow. We found the community we thought we were looking for, and then found that like all communities it has it's dramas and issues. In truth it is a lesson well learned. The utopic community that we want to believe exists doesn't. Every community has the same demographic disparity of good people and people that you'd prefer you didn't have to deal with.

Burning Man extends beyond the event itself. It is a living morphing idea that is carried into the world and throughout the year by a handfull of it's participants. I would say that a large percentage of the people that attend are there for the party. It is that. But that's not all. Some of them participate as a community year round, and bless them for being able to live at that level of intensity. Some of them, like me and mine, carry this idea in our hearts and souls year round, living at a level below the crashing waves of the communities surface.

"To me Burning Man is" - you hear this a lot among the participants who all realize that BM is what you make of it for yourself - to me the most pervasive benefit of BM is the shift in paradigm. Black Rock City is a social experiment on the grandest of scales. It is a gigantic village formed of small pods of people. Each pod (called a camp) is a working community on a smaller scale. Each pod is a fully functioning and self sufficient village of it's own - ideally speaking. They all really do try their best. It's a lot of hard work on a very temporary scale, but it does show you a different way to live - and that you can live comfortably and happily without many of the conveniences we have come to believe are necessary to daily living. That you can benefit from living and working together outside of the nuclear construct that is so familiar. That working together outside of that construct is necessary to survival outside of the machine. Everyone has their own internal assets that they bring to the table - and only working together does this become joyful and easy. It can be done alone - but it would be much harder.

Last fall was my first trip to BRC. I remember on returning that I stood in my own bathroom filled with wonder as the water ran freely from the tap. After ten days filled with travelling, camping, and pumping my own water from a barrel - the miracle of running water overwhelmed me. I quickly shut it off having come to view it as the precious resource that it is.

This wasn't a new concept to me. I lived in Alaska for a short time where we had to have our water trucked to the house. Conservation was imperative. But after years of living in the city where the resources seem to appear like magic through the fuse box, through the faucet, through the gas lines; you tend to lose a little perspective.

Our journey to Burning Man took us ten years from first hearing about it. It took 18 months from our introduction to the local community. In the midst of this journey, and at a time when our lives were in the largest flux my husband and I have known together, some very special people appeared in our lives.

For years now I've had this niggling nonsensical dream of moving to the mountains to raise goats. (My adoration for these creatures is a story all it's own that I will have to tell at another time.) At our local "Burn", Apogaea, we met a woman who had brought horses to the event. The novelty of course drew us in, and again the developing friendship is a story all it's own, but it was the goats that got me. She and her husband live on a small ranch (if 42 acres is small - it seems a vast expanse to someone used to living on a tiny plot in the city), and she has a herd of fiber goats. This was indeed the initial motivation to making the trek onto the plains for a visit.

I was working on a self portrait project at the time. She had her daughter go fetch a baby goat and bring it into the kitchen so that I could make an attempt at capturing my portrait for the day with the wee creature. Trying to get livestock to cooperate in a busy kitchen proved challenging - and after getting to know this woman better I understand that this was as much for her own entertainment as it was for my benefit. This act, however it was intended, won my heart. Somehow, in the weeks and months that followed, she and hers became my own. They are as close to family as any that I share blood with, and the experiences that follow that moment have shone more light on the doorway than any others.

(Idlewild Ranch has a it's own blog that I contribute to on occasion. While it is an integral part of this journey, it's only part of this story.)

It's important to me to share all of this as part of my journey. I believe the thought process that has led me down this path, closer than even to the door - the way out - is necessary to understanding the rest. At heart I'm a writer. It's a compulsion that I can't escape. So here I am, putting my thoughts on the page. So, please, excuse the backstory. I've started capturing this mid journey really. The last 34 years of my life have been leading me on to this point, but most of what pertains to finding the door has been going on inside my head. I'd like to think that now - we are at the exciting part. This is where the action begins. I'm at vantage point on a hill where I can actually see the door. I fear the huge chasm between between myself and it. I fear that as I cross the dark valley of uncertainty I may lose sight of the door. I'm operating on a lot of faith here - so I'm going to take a step forward.

The only way out is forward.

Looking for the Door

For years now I've felt a longing. I look around at the world that I'm living in and I feel a deep dissatisfaction with the way it's working. I see the people in my life struggling to make ends meet, struggling to make their marriages work, struggling to raise their children. Every day it's an uphill battle against a system that is in collusion to keep us struggling.

We go to work every day performing what they would like us to believe are important tasks. They are important only to the machine, and the machine has a purpose that they would like us to forget. The machine is feeding only itself, and it's using our souls as the power the grid to do it. The machine exists to perpetuate itself. Debt is the ball and chain, and it keeps it's hold on us through our own desire to consume. The machine feeds us information that keeps us in debt. It gives us credit cards and mortgages and uses the laws of supply and demand to keep our rate of consumption at a level that will drive the prices higher, driving us to incur more debt so that we can keep up.

This longing that I feel is my soul crying for departure from the machine. My soul has known for years what my brain couldn't quite latch onto. My emotions waned as I spent years feeding the machine. I kept wanting and consuming and digging the hole that would keep me here - wanting, consuming, and feeding the machine - perpetuating a life that I will eventually pass on to my children.

Somehow some light snuck in. Somehow my soul spoke loud enough for my brain to hear it. I don't have to keep doing this. It doesn't have to be this way. I don't have to keep feeding the machine. The machine is lying. There is a door - and I can walk through it. Others have. There are possibilities outside of the machine.

And so my brain began struggling against the machine. Dissatisfaction set in leading me down a pathway to depression; leading me to want things that are directly contrary to the needs of the machine. My brain began looking for the doorway - but the paradigm beyond the doorway is so foreign to everything that I've been taught that though it's right in front of me, my eyes just can't seem to focus on it.

Lately - glimmers of reason and understanding have been sifting through the smog of the machine. Ideas are running through my mind about taking the leap and making it happen. I'm realizing that the only way through the door is to start walking towards it. It's location is vague but I CAN see it up ahead.

I can put one foot in front of the other. I can trust my intuition to guide me and begin taking steps. The trouble with the door is that you can't get to it in a day. And it's work. I know that there will be physical labor in the future, but the labor now is mental. It has less to do with figuring things out as it does with overcoming everything I know - everything I've been told.

I realize that right now all of this sounds like it was written by a crazy person. Perhaps I am crazy, but no crazier than the woman in the office next to yours. I'm no crazier than the woman that you will pass in the aisle at the grocery store later today. We've all gone a little bit mad in my opinion. Madness is the only justification I can find for continuing to live this way.

I keep wishing that there were someone to take my hand and lead me through these steps. I haven't found anyone. I see alot of forums on self-sufficience and sustainable living out there. I know people who are giving it a go that are perhaps only a step or so ahead of me. I haven't found the guidebook yet. Perhaps I will as this search begins in earnest.

Until now this has been mostly in my head and in the ears of my loved ones. I think often that they are tired of hearing me go on about it. I know that some of them are afraid of what it means to pull away from the machine. My dear husband seems to be drifting slowly after me. He is at a point now where he at least seems willing to hear me. His soul must be speaking louder, too. I know that he feels as stuck as I do, but the way out is hazy for all of us. It's hard to step forward when the footing isn't sure. It's hard to risk falling. It just seems like I'm risking so much more by sitting still and continuing on this path.

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
~Albert Einstein

It's time to do something different. I have some ideas and I'll be jotting them down as they come through more clearly to me.

For now - baby steps. They may be small, they may not get me far, but at least I won't be in the same place tomorrow.