Hermit Blog

Neighbors Helping Neighbors

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 13:27:53 -0600

The first part of this week has been a good opportunity to consider how lucky I am to live where I do, and to be from where I’m from.

I grew up in a small community; it was 14 miles to the closest town. Our nearest neighbors were more than a mile away, and we saw very little of those neighbors. The nearest neighbor we really had any doings with was more than two miles away. But when we needed help, we knew it was okay to ask for that help, so long as we were willing to help in return.

It’s the same way here.

I’ve spent some of my summer helping Ken and Casey building their cabin. This week I spent a morning (and so did Ken and Casey) helping put in windows in my friends Pat and Lee’s new home. One of those windows was VERY large. It made me think back on when I was putting in my sliding glass doors (all 10 of them), two of which were 8x8 feet. My friends John, Joe, and Erik and Angie helped me more than I can say when I was doing the outside of the house.... And I thought about how ‘pay backs’ aren’t always a tit for tat... the receiver giving back to the giver... sometimes gifts of help travel a vast circle... I suppose that’s one reason I always loved the movie “Pay it Forward.” And probably why I love the concept of practicing random acts of kindness.

I’m blessed. And if I can help others a little bit while I’m on this earth, then it’s all worth it, yes?

The sun powers the computer, the wi-fi network, the satellite internet connection, the coffeemaker, and the breadmaker that allow the writing and publishing of this website. The house that it’s written in is being built with power tools powered by photovoltaics. The dogs are not.

No electrons were harmed in the making of this blog entry. The photons are very tired, however.

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Not About Perfection

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:08:13 -0600

I live in a beautiful place, in a beautiful home, with beautiful friends and beautiful canine companions. And today I realized that beauty has nothing to do with perfection.

As I look around my house, I see some cosmetic errors in construction. I see scratches and pawprints on walls and doors left by four-legged friends. I see a wall that’s been lightly chewed upon by a black lab puppy whose middle name seems to be “Termite.”

I see dust everywhere. I see fingerprints of short people on windows. I see dirty dishes and coffee cups, used by friends. I see remnants of science projects on the kitchen counters.

And I think, when was it that I realized I wasn’t building a “perfect” home?

Which leads me to the startling possibility that beauty is perhaps defined more by imperfection than by perfection.

Would Marlene Dietrich or Marilyn Monroe have been as beautiful without the moles on their faces? Didn’t that imperfection make them all the more beautiful because they weren’t perfect?

Doesn’t the fact that Beethoven composed some of his greatest works during the time that he was deaf make them all the more poignant and beautiful?

Don’t we look for “distress” in some kinds of antiques? Don’t we value works of pottery all the more when we find the potter’s thumbprint accidentally left in the clay?

A long time ago, I learned this lesson in gardening, too... you do the best you can to put together a good framework... and then things happen that you didn’t plan. That red poppy winds up growing next to a white daisy, and looks great. That little sprig of tarragon that looked like it could be contained in a 1x1 foot square is now four feet tall, and makes a great backdrop for the Mr. Lincoln rose.

Yes, I think there is beauty in imperfection.... I’m not entirely sure that beauty is defined by imperfection, but as I grow older, I find that I am more tolerant of, and even appreciative of, that which is less than perfect.

And I think instead of worrying about the imperfections in my home, I’ll cherish them. I’ll cherish them as reminders of those who left them.

Family

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:08:16 -0600

Maybe it was the Peace rose blooming this week--a rose given to me by one of the few blood relatives I have that still claims me.

Maybe it was all the talk during the Prop 8 lawsuit in California, with people telling me what a family is supposed to look like.

Maybe it was the loss of Angelo, and the amazing reunion with him.

Maybe it’s the amount of time I’ve been blessed with spending with Ken and Casey and Zoe.

For whatever reason, I’ve been thinking a lot about family. Not the cute, coloring book family, with one mommy and one daddy and 2.2 children. Not the elderly couple, who married each other and still love each other, and have a house full of children and grandchildren on the holidays. Not even the young couple, just married, and making it day by day through the early stages of relationship.

The family I’m thinking of is my family, and the families of those like me, who are unmarried, uncoupled, and disowned. The family I’m thinking of is a beautiful, rich, diverse, often not related group of people who form a quilt of many fabrics and many colors. A family cobbled and stitched together through choice and through God’s blessings and through serendipity.

My family’s number changes, from day to day.... My family includes a nephew who lives halfway around the world. My family includes those of both the two- and four-footed clans. My family includes the boyfriend of a friend he stopped dating decades ago. My family includes a man I met when he was a busboy at a restaurant I frequented some 30 years ago. My family includes some people I’ve worked with. My family includes the brother and sister-in-law of a friend who died of a heart attack. My family includes the widow of the only brother I wanted desperately to be like. My family includes a woman who was a waitress at a restaurant I loved when I first moved out here in the middle of nowhere. My family includes a man and a woman with whom I’ve worked, traveled, and stayed on a sailboat. My family includes the woman who found the body of the dog who moved with me to this place.... My family includes a woman who shouted through an elevator door, “You must be Leland, let’s do lunch!” some 29 years ago. My family includes a cousin who was the blacksheep of her family as much as I am of mine. My family includes a man and woman with whom I worked on two continents. My family includes a man and his wife and daughter who I met through my blog. My family includes a survivalist neighbor. I can go on and on.

My point is this. It’s all well and good for people who fit a particular stereotype of family, whatever that is. But as I look at my life, as I look at the lives of people I know, there is no stereotype that fits. We cobble our families together, we mix and match, and we don’t think a whole lot about it. We do what we do for spiritual, emotional, and sometimes physical, survival.

So whether you’re an aging (gracefully, I hope) single person; or a person who has children, step children, and children who aren’t in any way related to you; a ‘conventional’ married couple; or any other form of family; take heart. All of our families matter. All of our families are, in the end, self-defined.

And I thank God for the glorious quilt of many colors which is my family.

Master Bathroom Shower Used First Time

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 21:45:11 -0600

You know, I thought I was happy when I got the shower tiled and working in the guest bathroom. But today, I finally found the rest of the pieces of the track for the shower curtain for the master bathroom, and after only a few hours of struggling with it, I got it hung on the ceiling, and YES! I got to experience the tree shower today!

It feels wonderful... there’s still a couple of pieces of trim that go against the ceiling and wall to go (staining and three coats of polyurethane to go), and I discovered I need to get a 7’ long shower curtain, but good grief all that water felt great!

I also worked in the guest bathroom a little today... got the ceiling speaker connected in there, and the last light fixture put up... I have about three square feet of texturing to go in there, and then I can paint the whole bathroom... then it’ll be ready for trim, too... there’s going to be a lot of staining going on before long!

Also more texturing to go in the master bedroom, but it keeps getting closer and closer to done!

Colors

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:42:19 -0600

Seems I’m always jumping ahead... Houses are supposed to be built in a linear, well-defined fashion. Oh well.

This morning I had to see some color in the master bedroom. And now I’m playing with ideas for colors for the walls.

Let me back up.

The ceiling is going to be stark white. I’m postive of this. The upper walls, which will be separated by ebony stained wood trim, will be the denim blue in the picture above. The shower tile is this:

The wall that the sink is on is also going to be stark white.

Woodwork will be an ebony stain on pine:

The knotty pine doors will only be coated with tung oil, so a little darker than they currently are, but the same color.

The window frames are desert sand:

I’m toying with ideas for the colors of the lower walls.... something beigish, like the color of the roof, named “Sahara Tan”:

Or a shade of dark gray (like the color of the grout around the tile, above) or green. I’ve actually considered even a medium ‘milk chocolate’ color.

Most of the fabrics (sheets and towels and the like) will be various shades of blue, in the denim family.

Decisions, decisions. Any suggestions?