Fall is thundering in. Wet orange leaves are stuck to the roads in slippery ridges, the rain is relentlessly whipping at the trees, and I'm running devotedly with Seeker in the pitch dark with a flashlight only minutes after getting home from work. We need to buy firewood and cistern water, but we keep putting it off along with any other new purchases for comfort's sake. We're on the verge of paring down from every angle. Everything is on hold this week as we're hoping strongly that we're about to shift gears in our living arrangements. We want to exist in a smaller space, with only the very essential things we need. We know it's possible to live even further within our means, in order to manifest our midlife dreams.
It so happened last week that we came across, by the word of a good friend, a smaller and more economical place for rent that, since having been invited in to see, we are distractedly smitten with....I began to visualize the way we would care for this place, being just a one bedroom with a captain's kitchen and an overall carry-cabin character of plywood and windy chilliness...we are feeling so ready to adapt to closer quarters and create a year-round garden that we can really honour, and there is a fenced yard that offers privacy for us and sanctuary for our pets. I know I can upcycle the interior with fresh paint and pure minimalwabi sabidecor. If only we can manage to land this perfect cabin that felt like the right new home as soon as we walked in the door. I'm nervous even to write about it because we have only been communicating with the landlord through emails so far, and I find that the hardest thing to do....making sure you are able to present yourself , your reputation, your financial reliability and your intentions clearly and convince him you are a super good fit for his needs as well as yours. Our habit is never to force anything or push too hard for a desired outcome, but just to allow the universe to let things fall as they will.....not to build up too much attachment and to know that if one thing falls through, something else is waiting. But, eeeeeeek, sod to all that, this time I can't help it and I hope we do get this place. We have friends in the neighbourhood crossing their fingers for us too.
Well, we will know in a matter of days if the call will come to meet up and make arrangements, we have the deposit ready to go and just have to keep busy and not drum our fingers beside the computer. So to keep my mind diverted, I have begun to paint a grizzly bear in oils. There are certain enormous and intimidating animals that visit me in my dreams frequently....orcas very often, and grizzly bears reoccur just as much. I think both creatures will wind up laid out on my canvas, because they are so deeply embedded in my subconscious. Several times, I've nocturnally conjured up the image of grizzly bears romping through prairie wheat fields, not exactly their natural habitat, but the image is really gorgeous and so I'm going with it. Here is the beginning of the adventure, from a broad perspective, then in closer detail:
The canvas is actually square, 24" x 24" ...and the bear is centred....I'm visualizing a harvest moon or a bright sun behind him, and perhaps some magical elements that shall contrast with the mild realism I've already displayed. Yes, this week is all about visualizing a magical outcome!! Meanwhile, I have finished The Cat and the Thistle, and have asked my good friend and neighbourJames, who is the talented professional who photographed my Otter in high resolution, to do the same with my most current work. I'll post his photo of it in a few days, after he has finished with it. I know he will make it shine in its very best light. OK, I'm sipping ginger tea and listening to the wind die down outside. I'm working the closing shift tomorrow at the local library, so I can sleep in a bit in the morning. Goodnight, world. xo
Here is a link for you. Check out Soma FM. It's an online radio platform. I've selected the station Groove Salad....there are others that might suit you better. I have to tell you, this station helps me paint. I can't say I would play this particular station just for listening pleasure...I'm more an alt folk or dub girl. But the easy confident flow, the river-like beats of this station help me to paint. Once the brush is moving, and your mind is going in deep into the blending of the oils and the colours, the music gently pushes you along. A few days ago I began painting this cat. I've had Balthus on my mind a lot, had my books of his art slung open all over the place on the sofa....and somehow got inspired to do the cat. I'm adhering to a Balthus-like palette (my take on it anyway)....pale greys and mauves and beige and lemon yellow....oh I love the muddy blending of his work, the lack of lines between figure and background. My friend plucked me a round-headed thistle this summer and I left it to dry in a little earthen vase. The shades of green on the leaves fascinated me...silvery blues and olive greens all on one stem...and the delicate pale mauve of the round thistle head itself...so charming. It only so happens that at the time of this painting unfolding, Scotland was going through a huge shift with the possibility of establishing independence from the UK. Having an English mother and a Scottish dad, my blood did churn in anticipation but I hadn't been so close to the core of the struggle to have a real attachment to either outcome. I found my instinct leaning toward the NO vote, not because of a liking for the status quo but because I felt the impending change would create more of a fissure and division...anyway, it's been voted on and means far more to those living their lives directly in the region. Well, it will be hard of me to look at this painting without feeling my Scottish roots tugging at me, a reminder of the time in history I chose to paint the cat and the thistle. I'm keen to finish it, but here it is so far...
It's been a long drawn out summer. No rain whatsoever...and our well suddenly dried up in August. I had been frugal with water before that, but once we dried up of course I couldn't water my beloved garden anymore. The little lush green world I had nurtured so carefully fell to drought.The grass turned brown. My plants withered. We were without running water in the house for a week until our darling landlord came through for us and installed a huge cistern. Out here friends and neighbours always come to the rescue and I was able to shower down the road at H & J's house. Meanwhile I had almost killed my garden...like a bad mother abandoning her child, I turned my back on it and refused to look anymore. I stopped mowing my magical maze. I figured autumn would slowly creep in and sweep the yard with leaves and hasten in the cold winds of the turning seasons, sweeping my guilt away with it. But no, it has been hot and dry for two weeks into September. Now I open my front doors onto my panorama of neglect every morning and rush off to work. K has grown restless and wants to move off the island. I could be open to the idea but I have always been content in this little house, burrowing in like a nestling, making the best of it. As renters, it's very hard to beat the situation we have in this spot. Affordable rent, a wonderful landlord who allows us to have pets, a beautiful serene forest setting.....we have a little cabin out back that had been trashed and treated poorly...and I decided to renovate it....my one fulfilling house project. I painted the walls a soothing pale green and my artwork seems to suit the back drop. I call it my zen room...it's a place friends can drop in for tea and respite, or to vent. It was so satisfying to build this gorgeous space, I'm moving along to the little back bedroom next, which I plan to paint pale yellow, then put in a twin bed and dresser and curtain dowel with lovely curtains. Pics of that to come when I'm done, but for now, here is the zen room:
Life is what you make it (what a novel concept!!) ....I'm content to create a beautiful world wherever I am, and not spend every waking minute wishing I was somewhere else. But of course I love my partner, and can very much respect his urge to move on....island life has other ways of taking a slow toll on you. People come here seeking a certain privacy, but the community that is so close and supportive on one hand can also be smothering and oppressive on the other. Anonymity is an illusion and more easily attained in the busy urban world. More art to come. I hope you too are making art wherever you are, because.... “Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in
business and in friendship and in health and in all other ways that life
can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.”
―
Neil Gaiman,
Make Good Art
I've failed at being a blog writer. Hmmm...not a good opening line. I've neglected my blog. More true. And bloody obvious. How can you fail at something you don't do? You can't. So, here I am again, with a painting. It's a start. But I don't really know where to start after not recording things for so long. My garden is beautiful this year. Here is our front porch on a rainy weekend, doused in greenery:
We've come through a lot and are doing better. I love my island life. My partner is stronger and fitter and healthier than he has been in a year. I'm jogging every day and at the library a lot. Anyway, an otter. One of my favourite spirit animals. Oil on wood!
I've started an otter in oils, on wood. Just the under-drawing. This will be my first try at oil on wood. I think I should have put down a base before starting, to keep the oil from simply absorbing into the grain. I just whipped out my pencil and began to draw on the raw wood. The creature has come easily to me. Maybe because I'm intuitively reaching for joy, embracing curiousity, allowing sponteneity to take over at last, and asserting my femininity....and the otter represents all of this. My under-drawing for Pink Moon was so pretty on it's own...until the final painting entirely obscured it. This time I hope the under-drawing shines through the finished work...we'll see. I hope it doesn't sit around collecting dust for months. I've already let it sit there for two days.
I've gone almost two entire weeks with no calls in to work at the library, and my only psychological anchor is to make art, yet I waste so much of my free time...K encouraged me to move my studio into the living room, to keep my art front and centre so I can't escape the easel beckoning...and it has worked. A true artist does not know what procrastination is. Nevertheless, my sister sent me a link to this new book titled Creative Block. I'm keen to read it because it deals with my own biggest enemy. I've fought the creative block for almost two years and I'm suddenly bursting out again, recognizing that inspiration and discipline are partners that can't do without each other. There is one place that I feel at home, truly at home, and if nothing else is going my way, at least I always have my art. So, here sits the otter, and here I go to finish it....
I've lived on G island for almost 5 years now, and in that time I
have experienced one spectacular orca sighting, which I wrote about in
this blog, I think around February 2012. Prior to that visitation, the
only time I had seen wild orcas was during a ferry crossing to Tsswwassen,
when a pod of nine were spotted during the sailing, and the captain
turned off the engines of the ferry so we passengers could see them
glide past us majestically in the Strait of Georgia, their natural
domain. They were like confident glistening black needles threading
through the sea, stitching together the ocean where they belonged,
gently reminding us we were only a passing ripple in the fabric of their serene and almost perfect world.
Almost every day I try to go down to the oceanside with my dog Seeker, and we trot along the rocks and catch glimpses of sea lions, otters and seals....and I often stare for ages at the sea in all its possible metamorphoses, hoping to have another orca siting. There is nothing like it.
Tonight
I watched the movie "Blackfish", having taken it out from the library
of course, and in spite of the trailer describing it as a "Mesmerizing
Psychological Thriller"....(I forgive them for doing what they can to
lure people to watch)....I was moved to optimism, I was filled with
hope. I want to believe that we will evolve as humans and that, as one of
the ex-Sea World trainers said, "I think in 50 years we'll look back and
go My God, what a barbaric time ".
The documentary
recounts the history of the bull orca Tillicum, who is still performing at Seaworld in
Orlando.Trainers who had once worked at Sea World have come through
their experience as enlightened human beings, having started out in their chosen career with
pure starry-eyed intentions, and because of such pure hearts they were
able to see what was ultimately wrong about keeping whales in
captivity. This movie revealed the power of experience, compassion and intuition to
change one's mind about exploitation and imprisonment.
I'm
returning this move to the library tomorrow. I hope you'll sign it out
after me if you have not seen it. Perhaps you'll find it difficult to
watch, and weep for Tillicum who to this day deserves to be returned to an open ocean pen.Whale captivity for the sake of entertainment is an industry that must be put to rest.
There was a huge outcry over the idea of orcas being captured to show at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, and the plan was dismantled. Encouraging, and hopefully the beginning of the end.
I finished this painting tonight, that is, I am feeling it is done, except for maybe a few fine details. The barn owl might be a little too blue. This painting began with the image of the young girl, and her face was best left the way it was early on...I overpainted her in my opinion...but that was OK, as it all began to flow in a sort of vivid style after that. The owls, the salmon, the moon, the trees, the young girl in the deerskin hat....she is bright and optimistic and at peace, her spirit animals are the owls and the salmon....deep down I think this painting is to honour the wild salmon, the owls are the guardians of their brother fish, and so is the young woman. I suppose even the moon is pink because it is here to stay. It just seems right to title it Pink Moon, and many people of a certain age will find themselves singing the song by Nick Drake, which is fine by me.
Across the world, in Venezuela right now, in the Ukraine, in many places, people are fighting for their right to a fair way of living. For simple freedoms, for human rights, for their dreams, and some are being shot on the spot for demanding something better of their leaders. How is it that they are they, and I am me? It just is. For if I were them, I would be them, and if they were me, they would be me. What I deal with day to day is in no way a struggle in comparison to theirs. Where I live, however, there are still things to fight for, there are human rights to defend, there is nature to protect, and a living to be carved out. The onus is on us, as residents of this amazing part of the world, to preserve what is truly most valuable, to discover intelligent and resourceful ways to be self sufficient and to strengthen the social structure of our communities. They say you must start from where you are, with what you have, and do what you can. So, here I am renting a house on a gulf island, commuting to work in the town across the water, trying to utilize my talents to provide a living. What kind of living do I want? One of peace, of achievement, of contentedness, self-sufficiency and low impact. Should that right be available to all of us? Yes, it should. Then, how?
A Summer's venture to Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park
One of the first places I came to visit on G Island in 2008 was the home of S and R, then best friends of my partner K. Arriving by bike off the ferry on a hot July day, I got lost trying to find their house, and had to keep asking the locals how to get there. Anyone I asked seemed to know the way, carefully checking me out before answering. While riding around the island in haphazard disorientation, my unfolding surroundings overwhelmed me with nostalgia. The quiet gravel country roads encroached only by by forest, the fresh air and the lack of traffic, the smell of the sea in my lungs...my mind wandered back to my childhood summer holidays spent at Qualicum Beach, where our friends owned the humble beach-front Waskasoo Inn, with its sand-splattered floor tiles and its seaweed and driftwood-scented rooms. Wild and suntanned children of the 70s, we'd bravely march along the railway tracks through the woods until we reached a secret trestle, where the raging river suddenly stood still and formed a pool as serene and deep as a mug of warm milk. We'd dive and swim and hang from tree branches,and shout at our own echoes from the surrounding rock walls ....then we'd wander safely back at dusk on the deserted Island highway, past a pink sunset shoreline view interrupted only by the presence of Mrs. Little's Cabins and the odd motel, to discover my dad and Mr. D returning from a day of fishing for salmon in the ocean...we'd devour the buttered red fish off the barbeque and watch in horrified awe as Mr. D held freshly roasted oyster shells above his head. Barely cracked open by the heat of the beach fire, they would slide slowly out and then suddenly drop down the back of his throat, setting us all screeching with disgusted glee. We'd light fires inside milk cartons and send them off on the outgoing night tide, watching them flicker upon the waves until we could only squint at little pinpoint specks in the dark, confusing them with the stars.
When I arrived at S and R's house that daydreaming July day, I noted how easily I could have passed it, tucked away and unassuming, an eyeblink of a driveway hidden from the road. I pushed open the big wooden gate in their ten foot fence, and walked into a world that would entrance me all over again, for I thought, right away, this is paradise. A thin but well-worn path crossed a yard overflowing with flowers and vegetables, past a tire hanging from a tree, and beaten down and bleached wooden sheds, bees buzzing, birds tweeting, the smell of soup cooking, a rickety old sunken mobile home covered in rose bushes, with a boot-trodden covered porch offering rocking chairs and sofas, decorated with hanging beads and glassware, candles and animal skulls and batik cloth and stoneware pottery, buckets of seashells, and beach stones piled in the corners of each porch step.. My partner was there waiting for me, and he introduced me to S ~ tall, with friendly eyes and and a lanky build, and R, with her red flowing hair and long colourful hippie skirt. I was invited in for tea, and was fascinated by the humble beauty of their home...so simple, with plywood floors, a woodstove, a small kitchen, yet crammed to the rafters with books and musical instruments and textiles and art on the walls, the sun streaming in the windows to paint everything gold, highlighting a lived-in chaotic assembly of used furniture and unfolded laundry and pets. This initial visit would soon blend in with the many ensuing wonderful days and nights spent at at their place, eating fried local oysters in mesquite sauce, listening to R play the piano and sing while S played the accordian, huddling round the woodfire cuddling Angel the dog, gathering round the table for one of R's home made meals, laughing with her daughter and son, getting pecked on the neck by the lovebird Lucy, helping R organize her school papers for marking, watching S carve his artful handmade jewellery. Always their door was open and always they had friends over throughout the day. Always there to listen to stories and tell jokes and offer a shoulder for someone to lean on, they were, to me, the most exemplary couple ever. Like us, their love of the natural world surrounding them was their passion, and close small community their stronghold. I said to K the very day that I met them, this is how I want to live, I want us to be like them, with an open welcoming home and a strong supportive connection to our neighbours.
Thistles in the yard of S & R
I suppose I thought, when shortly after that visit I decided to move here, that I was coming back to that sort of an ideal island life, but you would not recognise my old Qualicum Beach today and I'm quite sure that this island is too, alas, slowly losing it's own quaint and isolated edge. Eventually I realized that my romantic vision had already passed by about thirty or forty years ago, and S & R's home was a fragile surviving oasis; they had bought their property years ago and worked hard to maintain their dreams and positively impact their community. As much as we hoped to replicate their frugal and simple low impact lifestyle, it was rapidly becoming a challenging and fading possibility.
Not long ago on the ferry I overheard another version of the wailing call of the far removed yearning for that future day. This wailing call is the mournful lament of the people who visit this island and hum and sigh about the difficult economy and say how much they would LOVE to move to a gulf island like this but it is simply impossible to do so and make a "decent" living. These are the ones like the man I met at a party awhile ago who said it took him seven years to finally move here because there was no way to build his second home sooner, like the businessman I met in Vancouver who sold his sprawling summer house here because his city obligations never allowed him time to get away to it. The ones who firmly believe that a certain amount of secured wealth is prerequisite or imperative to setting down roots in this fast receding ecosystem of clean water, lovely forest paths, various rocky and sandy beaches, fresh fields that welcome deer, slapping tides that otters roll in, tree tops where the eagles perch, horizons cut sharp by orca fins, dewy earth-scented trails where bike tracks can dry and disappear before the next rider finds them, hidden alcoves deep off the beaten path that house muddy beaver dams, gravel roads that sit silent on a Friday at dusk,small and simple unobtrusive cottages that a woodstove can fully heat, ocean water that welcomes swimmers and row boats, pitch black night skies that offer a million stars per penny earned in a lifetime, as long as you can find a place where the treetops part enough to see them.
All of these divine and natural joys in life that should be FREE, free to us all while our lungs are still pink and our cheeks still rosy, seem to be the expected full or part-time reward only to a privileged few. And still, many of those privileged few prefer roads over fields, paint over wood, and parking lots over walkways, property lines over trails, and the erection of No Trespassing signs. How did this come to be? Of course some element of economy was needed to sustain anyone living here, but what kind of economy did that need to be? Wasn't it always here already if nature was able to provide, and those living here didn't equate serenity with luxury or enjoyment with convenience?
Last summer, working for $12 an hour, I had a chance to mow the lawns
of numerous beautiful properties around the island.While I got my exercise I was able to
feel the sun on my body, enjoy gorgeously abundant gardens, smell the beckoning giant froth of the sea and, on one particular day, stand in front of the widest private view of the ocean from a
vantage point that will never be mine or anyone's but the home
owner's...who wasn't living there, and wouldn't be back for six months.
K and I recently read a book titled Twelve by Twelve ~ A One Room Cabin Off the American Grid
which encompasses an ideal that still struggles to find its space in the wilderness....the idea of self-sufficiency in a very low impact and minimal lifestyle. It is a dream of ours to seek out such a living.
View of the ferry arriving ~ photo by Sean McFarland
Many enterprising people in society are sacrificing their time and their lives to an unchallenged formula, the formula that separates life from lifestyle, and career from home. They have an eye on the final reward...the comfortable life they expect to live here "one day". Much as I wonder at the roundabout pursuits of these people, their hard work and retirement-aimed goal has made it possible for people like me
to live here year round, to be crazy enough to barely manage to rent a
house in the woods twelve months a year, to wake up every morning seeing
trees and not cement outside my window, to force myself to be creative
and resourceful in my means of earning a living, and to be thankful for
having the very basic necessities with which to eke by while surrounded
daily by the enormous beauty I can never, now that I know it so well,
ever leave for anywhere else, unless we move somewhere more remote, somewhere that still runs fifteen or twenty years ahead of its wider discovery.
We remain here, simply surviving, with no guarantee of savings or so-called security, and yet, we actually own from day-to-day what nobody can buy or make or replace once it is gone...pristine, unspoiled nature.
Unsuccessful at securing a livable income on G island, we rely on my work in town on Vancouver Island, a 24 minute ferry ride away. Being among those who rent here, we're part of the struggling service population, and yet it is the only way we can be here now. Is it really a worse deal than owning a home we must wait to live in year round , or worse yet not ever want to live in year round? Sadly, I have quickly learned how much the odds are stacked against people like us, and how much the wailing call is a true and valid lament. It IS a struggle to live on G Island through all four seasons if you are not a home owner, retired, a successful business owner, or well-employed across the water.. The pursuit of simply maintaining a meager existence here is not for the faint of heart. A flexible and forgiving landlord is a Godsend and one has to pray he/she doesn't give in to the idea of renting at a higher rate to professors on annual sabbatical or a rotation of international visitors. People earning minimum wage who rely on affordable accommodations on G Island will never see the inside of a $1600/month second story ocean view suite, and can only hope the $800-900 rentals hold steady, the same rentals that only three years ago were $500-$600. The population here is rapidly morphing to a majority of wealthy elderly retirees and off-island recreational home owners, whose symbiotic partner is the necessary service and rental income providing population. The trades, and property maintenance, provide the majority of work for year-rounders, much of it for cash or at rates competing with off-island contractors. Local employers are pressed by long quiet winters to seek the economic advantage of hiring retirees or
teenagers who don't mind $10/ hour, and lack the means to hire working age
renters who rely on a full-time living wage. Unfurnished year round rentals are rare and far between.....ads for September-June furnished rentals asking city prices are increasing, and many people would rather alarm and protect their valuable vacant properties, fearing poor upkeep or property damage by low income renters.
Our Front Yard
Diversity is crucial to the maintenance of strong island community. To dilute it and tip the ship too heavily one way is the beginning of a sinking.
Almost everyone I know from the city has told me they could never take the risk of living as close to the bone as I do now. It's a massive leap of faith, which once taken, may not offer an easy way out. People will call you everything from crazy to lazy to falsely entitled to doomed, none of which are true, nor should be. Is it wrong to strive to survive on as little as possible, to have a trailer on a huge treed lot and never develop it, and to seek out an uncomplex life in the place you most wish to live? Good friends of ours who arrived here shortly after we did , all the way from Edmonton, eventually left for a more promising life in New Brunswick. A local family who have stretched themselves thin for seven years have announced they are at the end of their financial rope and will be forced to leave this spring.
My partner, who has lived on and off this island since the 90s, has
witnessed the slow erosion of natural simplicity as it caves in to the
invasion of West Vancouver style transplanted homes, more paved roads
and the erection of NO TRESPASSING signs where once anyone could freely
cut through the woods following only the deer trails. Now marketed and
"branded" as the Isle of The Arts, an optimistic and
exclusively chic generation of commercial artists rely upon the Arts
Council to
promote their work to the tourists and sustain their careers. The
council succeeded last year in packaging their brand by employing local
artists (upon condition they belong to the Arts Council) to paint the
telephone poles along the ferry hill, staking their claim to represent
their commodity to the tourist market. If you are producing art here and are not in the council, you will likely miss out on the fanfare of having your work widely discovered....something for diehard art hunters to consider...it might be necessary to go a little deeper to discover what is hidden in the woods...among my very favourite artists here, is an ostracized drug addict who lives on welfare, who would prefer to remain anonymous.
Once an island of hippies and wood cabins and small trailers on widely
separated lots, as with all areas known for their natural beauty, the
private ocean views and the tree-felling dream houses were soon to be
sought after. Suddenly offered sums for their properties they couldn't
even fathom, the simple living folk, unsung artists and bohemians of
20th century G Island sold out....and, sadly for the economy, the peaceful ma & pa pot growers such as our friend S have been increasingly busted out, essentially having their lives upset and ruined for no advantage to anyone. They must take the hard knocks and the punishment, as the greedy masqueraders of the the profit-seeking medical marijuana commercial industry barge in to trample them over and remove all their human rights. As far as I am concerned, pot is akin to broccoli and should be treated as such...grow it at home or buy it from the store, illegal to anyone under 18 to purchase. It's plain intelligence, and the economy would thrive, as well as people over corporations. The people are also let down again as another corporation, BC Ferries, has cut the sailing services to the
island forcing the working class out, and more empty subdivisions shall continue to
cramp in as real estate agents see profit.
Across the dirt road from us, a large circular lot has been carved out deep inside a remaining thin circle of high evergreens. We walk past it and peek across at the motor home which at night glows with a golden light. We've met one of the women who lives there, and we think we've spotted the other one at times. I always think, they have everything already, no need to go any further. Truly, if we actually owned a lot like that, a sweet little cabin or motor home would be enough for us to end our days in and find a community-serving way to make it work. But that's just me and my partner. We're wondering when the chain saws and hammering will start across the road, or if they will at all. So far we just smile and say hi when we see anyone there...we're too afraid to ask if, eventually, the trees will all be shaved, the magical forest stripped, and a West Vancouver lookalike home be erected.
I wish there was a way we could ALL find the life we want, simple or extravagant, where we want, and when we want it. Sometimes I'm sure there are two types of people...those who shall continue to move toward outer space, and those who shall remain cherishing this rare and fragile pristine earth. Both are adventurous and inventive, but me, I want to work where I live and be here now, build on my humble and simple living days where I thrive the most, for after all, life itself is a rental. The world is discovering how insecure we all are, balancing on a needle head. K and I want to earn our keep here always but starting NOW, and not buy into the delusion of the far removed who may never see their future day. We don't want them to be right, and they don't have to be. I want us to make it here, to make it here because we want for so little and don't want to have too much . And most of all, I want the wailing call to fade away.
