The Janitor and a Wattle Fence

Photo credit: Dirt Simple

"... Shining a light on the difficulties of the art-making process can be as important as noting the things that inspire us or help us progress --  including the particular challenges faced by artists with disabilities or medical conditions.

Most healthy people can understand, and empathize with, the disruptive nature of a large medical crisis; but the daily effects of life's random ups and downs on those of us with limits of strength are perhaps less obvious. These small things -- trivial and constant -- chip away at our work time, our output, our income, and sometimes even our self-esteem, as we watch healthier colleagues speed ahead of us, unencumbered by the weight that we carry.

The saving grace comes each and every time that a friend or colleague stops, looks back,  sees us struggling on, and extends a helping hand. That happens often too. The trials of illness are many; but so are the blessings, which shine bright as the moon."

'The small things, Terri Windling

Sorry to have been absent from the blog these weeks. The flu complicated with the effects of asthma is making life just that much more weighty. We built our Vardo for Two to be part of an envisioned community where our way of life and our disabilities and sensitivities become understood and embraced. This choice is not an easy one, "avoidance of all things that trigger the illness", was the 'medical recommendation' given me when I got (and paid for) the diagnosis of Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. 

Spiritually the Romani-influenced vardo comes with the awareness all travelers, people of the road, know in the marrow. The character Galway Gwen is a traveler, Gypsy, tinker who speaks so purely about life of travelers. "Being sure of a real welcome is a grand thing, we were always finding that here (with you and your family). Maybe the only place we did. There's a freedom in that." Kathleen Anne Kenney's lovely new novel Girl on the Leeside set in the hills of rural Ireland has been our winter remedy reading and what soul-enriching medicine it is. While we learn what this prairie land requires of us as caretakers it is our golden wagon that attracts the soul-medicine we might otherwise lose track of.

By befriending time, we have found how long it takes to give-and-take and create understanding and shared resources; change is slow. "Information does not make people change," as Robin Wall Kimmerer wisely put it; "relationships do that." Our first night in the golden wagon was in April, 2009. We are still in the process of building those relationships; there seems no end in site to that journey in the wagon.

Winter on the Prairie Front was challenging. We have so much to learn about this new place -- each season brings new characteristics-- and the place is still getting to know who we are, skeptical yet hopeful that yes, we are the ones who know the language of reciprocity and respect. The winds are fierce and unrelenting as they shift from south to north but there is a benefit to the north wind because it carries road noise away. A blowing south wind rich with rain batters the vardo wall, but on a day like today with the sun heating that same wall, buckled by the rain into wavy oak walls re-form and settle back into place. 

Like living life in general, the way Pete responds to illness is different from the way I respond;  but this virus and the lingering cough and lung infection wear us both down. Pete has used his body to work all his life; movement is his remedy. I am a hybrid border witch with roots of the Pacific Islands long separated from home but . My senses are basic spider, or Scorpio, old school (very old) of awareness that says 'If the messages aren't reaching me on all levels they probably aren't true." My problems stem from self-sabotaging beliefs that counter my best good; too fixed for my own good. It's so important for me to remain teachable in spite of the struggle.

Here on the Prairie Front Pete is the old janitor we all knew when the school janitor ran the joint. He cleaned shit up, he patched broken knees (not every school had a school nurse); and if stuff needed doing you looked for the janitor not the principal. When I was a kid the janitor lived on campus, with his family in a cottage not far from the rest of the school. That's Pete. Just call him the Janitor.

Together we weave a braid of a fence like those fences made from pruned limbs of trees from the land. The limbs thread between the wire in the fences leaving space for the wind and sound to travel through. It's funny how the architecture of such fences are such a great metaphor of being part of the whole. If that fence was solid the wind would build up strength, doubling as it climbed and knocked the crap out of you when it reached the other side. I learned these fences are called Wattle Fences. Don't you love it; not to be confused with 'waddle.'

Last night Pete attended the monthly Tilth Council meeting. He was there to listen to the latest issues and projects happening here on the land. He was also there to confirm our desire to upgrade the status of our connection (literally) with the electricity. We are on the wire now; Pete was at the meeting to say we would like to bring in a 30 amp service to operate Vardo for Two. This project would tap our former "Going to Hawaii" money with matching funds from the Tilth. We are heading in that direction. I can't attend his meetings, but always wait for the update when Pete finally drives up the road for the rehash and summary with a touch of janitor.

The last thing I heard him say about the meeting came just before I finally fell asleep after one of those coughing spells. He said the Land Steward for the Tilth told him privately at the end of the meetings, "I really appreciate all that you do!" Like Terri Windling wrote about the art-making of life with chronic illness and disability "The saving grace comes each and every time that a friend or colleague stops, looks back,  sees us struggling on, and extends a helping hand. That happens often too. The trials of illness are many; but so are the blessings, which shine bright as the moon."

This post may be a bit ragged, but I'm glad to send something off after working at it for days now.  Keep us in your best dancing remedies, wave as you go by on the highway; send us a bit of the shine that is you.

Thank you,
Moki and Pete