To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
~ Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living
I’ve never kept a journal. There was that little red one with silver gilt lettering I got when I was seven or eight. I kept it around for awhile because I was fascinated that it had an actual lock with a key I could hide away. I scribbled a couple deep, earth-shattering secrets in it but couldn’t be bothered after that, leaving pages and pages accusingly blank. The key got lost. I made several attempts later in high school and college but just felt way too self-conscious writing about myself. I also lack discipline. I decided I was not born to write. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: March 2014
Why tiny housers should see the movie Tracks
I just got back from a whirlwind weekend in Atlanta for a friend’s cd release party (check out the band Roxie Watson: “When you have a group of women who are natural story-tellers, who soothe their aggressive musical chops with beautiful harmonies, temper their rock-n-roll sensibilities with an understanding of Appalachian tradition, and come off as a little bit Keith Richards, a little bit Bill Monroe, you get Roxie Watson.” – Lisa Love, Georgia Music Magazine.)
While I was there, I was telling them about how my journey to tiny houses was influenced by Robyn Davidson’s camel trek across Australia (On camels and tiny houses) and the funny coincidences that have arisen from that (On camels, cameras, courage and kindness). This morning, up early due to jetlag, I got to wondering when the movie based on her memoir, Tracks, was due to open. I found the trailer and was very happy to see that, for the most part, the scenes and images look very true to what I pictured in my mind’s eye upon reading the National Geographic article back in 1978 when I was thirteen, and my many times reading Robyn’s book:
On becoming
Something strange happened on my most recent build stint. My house became real.
I had thought it was real before, as the walls went up and the roof sheathing and layers of foam went on, but I was wrong. It took up space but it only had the faintest of heartbeats, personality, soul. It had vacant eyes and a bald purple head. I loved it anyway.
But this time, with only a little prodding from me, it came into its own. It now has a full roof and windows and a crazy smile. It’s still without siding and a door, but now there is a definite sense of interior and exterior, a defiant assertion of self. I feel like my child has just sprouted a wispy beard and gotten a driver’s license; it’s both amazing and a little terrifying.
The last few weeks have been a time of big changes and a girding of loins. Of peering through the dark. Of confronting fears and planting seeds and taking leaps of faith. As I look back on my fifth build stint and the pictures I took, there’s a preponderance of grays and black, of clouds and drizzle, of cold metal and granite rocks. Of shadows, winter twilight and aluminum crutches.
But burgeoning beneath all of this are oranges and reds, warm light and glowing wood, budding friendships, camaraderie and familial love, and the promise of spring and of becoming, bubbling up like lava, inevitable, molten, raw.