The Search for Community: Bend, Everett, Whidbey Island

Life in Vardo for Two on the Ledge in Tahuya was our first experience with the give-and-take of relationship with people who were sharing their land and their lifestyle with us. Shared living of any variation takes time and commitment. We were asking old friends, who knew me back in the day when I was not EI environmentally ill to change their habits and practices using chemicals, products and fragrances of a contemporary family. We were new at this and had so much to learn. Our friends made concessions and modifications to their lives: sharing their bathrooms, changing some of their household products to fragrance free, and allowing us to camp on their land. In exchange, Pete cleared the area were we parked, and helped with construction and fix-'ems on their home. I was raw with understanding how to deal with an adrenal-taxed, very stressed body, and the emotional ups and downs that come with the process. Learning to communicate my needs in ways that said what I meant, and meant what I said when it was true for me without totally alienating?  That continues to be the greatest gift MCS or EI has given me: no way to back away from what I must do, even or especially when I thought I couldn't do it. That challenge has been a long-time challenge, one that simply would no longer be swallowed or denied without putting up a huge fess. My thyroid gland was the first to ke kuhikuhi point out loudly "Nana keia!!" "Look here!!" There was a legacy of denial and swallowed voice to heal. 

Link here for a post about the thyroid "The Butterfly Gland" written on Vardo for Two in December, 2008.

We are very grateful to our friends for their willingness to be our first encampment. There were rough edges to the process, and we pray time and forgiveness heals any lingering wounds. We hitched up Bernadette, the Dodge, in September, 2009 and the journey to find community continued.

Hover over the images for a description of what you're looking at.

Link here to a post on Makua o'o "Inheritance Tax, Responsibility, Kuleana ..."

The photographs below show the evolving nature of our life in the woods of South Whidbey Island 

2010-2017. We have shared land with another couple, two women who have become like family. With a nest for rest and recovery on a regular basis getting to know our neighbors, and letting our neighbors who who we are we have built a community. 

The winter of 2016 stretches into the new year, and it has been 'the harshest one yet.' To journey through the winter I began writing the latest of my medicine stories "Banana Skin and Ginger." It is like all the other medicine stories, a mythic memoir that bridges or laces up like a shoe lace the mythic with the everyday (mundane) and gives us a broader view of life. The story has served Pete and me as compass and surfboard giving us direction and a papa to pause and rest as we navigate new territory. Link here to read the story from its beginning.

The short video above is that of ka hula limu i ka Muliwai, a limu's hula at the Muliwai of Sunlight Beach. The imagery and the metaphor of seaweed gathering at the water's edge has such powerful messages for us. Powerfully the ocean brings the solidity and nourishing ocean's food to the shore. It is temporary, within the tidal cycle the gathered nourishment will breakup. `Aole ka 'ai limu gone the eatable limu. It's important to maka ala be alert to the opportunities. We were blessed with observing the bounty. Gave thanks, and recognize the gift. Mahalo na Akua.

What will unfold from this point forward? We are not entirely sure. The medicine story Banana Skin and Ginger has clues for us. Without crushing or pushing the plot, we leave plenty of room for surprises and adjustments while heading our surfboard to the shore home.For Part II of Vardo for Two, stay tuned.

The Search for Community: "On The Ledge"

Julie Genser, Founder of the online community Planet Thrive for folks 'Surviving and Thriving with Environmental Illness" interviewed us in 2009. That interview is here. Julie's questions were thorough and begins with the physical process of choosing, testing and building with materials that suited our level of health. But in addition to the Q&A about the building process Julie was curious about the community we envisioned living with, and the personal journey that is inevitable when all former definitions implode. We were living "On the Ledge" in the town of Tahuya in Washington state at the time of this interview. The photo below is from that spring, 2009.

Hover on the image for some detail.

Link here to read "10 Things to Consider Before Building a Mobile Bird Cage." If you are considering building a tiny home (on wheels or not) these questions might be worth asking yourself, and your builder (if he/she is not you).

 "Something very special happens when all the former definitions of your self, your security, your entitlements change. If you live to tell the story that special something is REBIRTH. Our journey is that, a piecing or peacing together of many 1) thoughts and beliefs, 2) emotions and feelings and 3) intuitive knowing." – Mokihana

Medicine Stories
Though I was not yet calling the stories wrote 'medicine stories' they were without doubt the mythic spiral of life that healed where prescriptions could not. The chronicle of our lives from a tiny home over time would be incomplete, filled with puka, if these stories were not given voice. The piecing and peacing of the journey must include the spiritual quest and the multiple reality of life in a human body. As I write this paragraph I count 20 stories in my medicine bag.

While we living in the kitchenette (the basement kitchen aka our living space) Sam and Sally started to make sense of something that couldn't just be explained.

When we settled onto The Ledge in Tahuya, the grandest story unfolded like chocolate melting slowly and surely on a warm flame. Woodcrafting The Tale wrote itself through me.

"The story began when we arrived on The Ledge and poured through me like warm chocolate. It soothed me, transported me and gave me a place that did not poison me. I seek the story for refuge and the words come to me I do not seek them. Maybe, there is something here for your dear heart read as if there was a voice canting. ~ "

Building her

We arrived in Seattle in May, 2008, rented the basement of a friend's home and began an eleven month experience of building a dream -- a Gypsy style vardo built to accommodate Environmental Illness. Six months prior to our Seattle arrival my husband Pete and I lived in our car, parked in beach parking lots, friends' driveways or on our cousins' front lawn, and learned what it took to survive on the fringes of contemporary society's definitions of 'proper and legal housing.' We were homeless by those standards and definitions and sickened by the products most people used without thought; but we were not without faith, and powerful imaginations! It was an amazing initiation at sixty and fifty-eight years of age.

On April 6, 2009 we pulled a beautiful golden wagon 8 feet wide and 14 feet long (on a 12 ' trailer with a 2' porch) made with much aloha and many guidance from dozens of guardian angels into our first landing spot "On the Ledge at Tahuya". The photos here and connections to links on our original blog Vardo For Two are a birthday gift a celebration of gratitude for the golden wagon of a home we built and continue to live in eight years later. We name her her, because of course, she has mothered us these eight years.

• We built the golden wagon home a punana a nest.
• We searched for community ka wahi noho like o ka poe/family 'ohana and found we needed to learn much more about ourselves to be family.
• We remember that we must ask permission before place was 'available' to us.
• We learned to listen for the answers, and proceed with respect.
• We practice digesting the culture of ka po'e kanaka the Hawaiian culture, invest in what it takes to understand it, defend and commit to Hawaiian cultural practices and language arts.
• Slowly we have rooted to keia 'aina this place the community of South Whidbey Island integrating and weaving the Hawaiian culture into our daily spiritual and physical life (there is no separation). 
• We are humbled, and give ourselves breaks when it's one of those times of mess making mistakes.

Now, we recap, makawalu unfurl from the what we've learned and prepare for the second-half of life from Vardo For Two.

Nana keia! Take a look.

Trailer and Subflooring/Foundation

TRAILER
It's an IRON EAGLE single axle 12 foot trailer with a break-away braking system, made in Oregon. Pete chose it because it has a load capacity that will give us approximately 3,500 lbs of actual vardo weight, and a single axle will allow us more maneuverability.

Walls and Roof

Link here to see the barn where Pete learned to bolt-it-together and make it last. The fence is 42 years old (and bolted together). The barn is 100 'x 65 ' and the beams were steel brackets and bolts holding the roof up. The work of restoring the barn was done in the mid-70's.

Link to this post for narrative.

Link to this post for thinking/sensitivity process at this point.

Link to this post for thoughts about cost for simplicity.

http://vardofortwo.blogspot.com/2009/03/building-vardo-we-have-cozy-roof.html

Inside

Close-up and final touches

Ahhh. First morning on The Ledge in Tahuya. We slept deep and sweet the first night! Mahalo nui Na Akua.

Go here to see how and where we journeyed.