I don’t know that we’ll really call this space “The Blue Room” but it does have one blue wall.

The space is a little “shop” that my brother built on his property many years ago. It’s small, about 250 sq. ft. altogether, and cleverly built from old truck boxes (but you wouldn’t know that just by looking). He has had several dreams for this space, none of which really came together. A few days ago he suggested we turn it into a space for me; he knows I need a “nest” in the worst way.

Over the years the space had filled with assorted detritus. There were the supplies and artworks of an artist named Muzak, and cool things our sister no longer wanted in her home. And there was a pallet of clear fir tongue and groove flooring.

We cleared the space of everything but the pallet of T&G and then got to work at laying a floor. This isn’t any McMansion type of precision floor installation. Sweep up the debris and roll out some paper. Which works swell for me, seeings as I’ve never laid a floor before.

I did a lot of studious observing while my brother measured, cut, and nailed. And then I practiced with the nailer on some scraps and then when he got distracted with a phone call, I slid in and installed some flooring myself.

I’m not new to construction, but there’s a lot that I don’t know. I’m much more familiar and comfortable with sewing or making art. But a big part of this whole adventure in “the wilderness” is to learn how to construct something larger than a pair of pants. Maybe today he’ll let me add the biscuit jointer to my skill set.

It’s all kind of cute though, because my intention for this Blue Room space is to make art and use my sewing machine. And now, if it’s warmed up enough outside I’ll go put some caulk on the window trim.

There is a lot of work ahead. First step, repair the sole of my work boot so that I can have some foot gear that is up to the tasks I must tackle. Here, I am using my brother’s chicken coop to sun-dry the sole after scrubbing to prep for gluing. I’m sure there’ll be photos of his chickens posted here later. And oh-by-the-way, the Chicken Selector app for iPhone? Disappointing.

Now, off the Internet and back to the chores, before the coolness of morning leaves and real summer heat arrives.

The short answer is: I am moving. The question being: Where have you been, Leila?

The actual decision to move was quite sudden, but the underlying reasons have been simmering for quite awhile−frequently causing me to be absent from my usual haunts.

For awhile I entertained the hope that I could contact each of my friends personally and share my news, but as reality has revealed itself, it is now clear that a more impersonal (but no less heart-felt) public announcement is going to have to suffice. My move date approaches with the speed and stealth of Mercury, and last night I learned my moving truck is arriving even sooner than planned …

So, I love you, but I am moving to my property in eastern Washington. (And I apologize, I really do, for the sudden and impersonal announcement.)

My new home will be on the property that I own, free and clear, and I will move into a structure that I own, free and clear. I like the notion of this. I have never had a home that was mine, truly mine, and I want one. I want to feel like I can do whatever I want. I want to feel like the work that I do is mine, and isn’t something I will eventually lose to a landlord or in a divorce.

This is the structure that I will move onto my property. It is a 1957 Streamline trailer that I bought from my brother for the equivalent of what I pay for one month’s rent in Seattle. Admittedly, it needs a lot of love.

She’s been gutted some time ago, and painted on the inside a few times. We’re working on peeling off the paint, which is easy in some spots and “impossible” in others. I’ll also have to add some appliances, do some plumbing, and set up a solar power system. And, by the time I have that all done I suspect winter will be falling and I’ll need to come down off my mountain.

But I’ll cross that bridge when it arrives. In the meantime, for the next few days I am packing up my apartment and buying a few supplies. Then my siblings will arrive to help tote and load and drive my (way too many) possessions 300 miles east.

In a very interesting twist, the move is slated to happen on the one-year anniversary of the final fracturing of my marriage. I like that timing.

This morning I did a little exploring into the solar-power thing. My friend Joanne, who has a fiberglass Bolar trailer, turned me onto a couple of websites with trailer-specific info, one of which a tidy little article about solar power and another with planning worksheets and all the equipment I could need.

I have a lot to learn, but finding this trailer-specific information is reassuring. Like, it’s been tailored to my situation and I feel like it is more within my grasp. Granted, there’s an entire lexicon to learn−Amp-Hour, sine waves, inverter, high capacity regulator. But it looks like it will not be nearly as costly as I worried it would be, to get enough electrical power for some lights, a laptop, and heck, maybe even my espresso machine. Hmmm. Should I buy that old wringer washing machine my brother got in his shop the other day? …

Photo: The BOLER passing us by Steve Bissonette and used with Creative Commons license

Today our paint stripping attack used more radiator cleaner, and a LOT of steam cleaning. The front end is looking pretty good, and the paint is being rather easy to peel off in the kitchen and bedroom area of the trailer; slow going though. Stripped the doors and drawers out, and started removing and wire-brushing the copper-plated hardware. The floor is going to need new linoleum (Marmoleum) and the kitchen drainpipe leaks, so some plumbing replacement is on The List. Also cruised Tonic Living online and looked at vintage-style upholstery fabric.

My trailer has a name now: Minnow.

And, I’m a little less freaked out, but still scared. Or maybe that’s vice versa.

And so it starts. Accidentally, almost.

I was contemplating buying this 24-foot aluminum darling, a 1957 Streamline. The interior had been painted several times, and in some sections all the layers of paint had loosened–including the original paint, and so I stood inside the Streamline, peeling paint off and revealing the shiny, virgin aluminum beneath. The quiet activity gave me something peacefully productive to do while I thought about my life.

It was a fine way to revel in what would be the reality of having this trailer. Standing amidst the mess that the trailer is right now, and just feeling it. Pondering what it would take to get it back into usable condition, what it would be like to spend a lot of time in it.

I peeled a lot of paint.

The floor became quite littered with hunks of the Streamline’s past−the original mint green (big in the 50s), a mundane ivory that grayed with age (and cigarette smoking?), and the most recent colors, a pair of garish blue, the same blues my mother used to paint my sister’s bedroom in 1972.

Now and again through the day I went inside the trailer and peeled more paint, thinking about what I want in my life, especially, what I want right now.

Not so much what I want in my future, but what I want, in a very immediate sense. What is soothing and sustaining me these days, what seems to suit me the best.

And not that I was ignoring “the future”, because taking on this Streamline would not be a short-term project, and would challenge my abilities and tendencies.

Later in the day, I discovered my brother inside the trailer, experimenting with paint removal chemicals and techniques. One thing led to another, and next thing I knew I was standing inside the Streamline, sipping on some iced tea, while my brother towed the trailer over closer to his pressure washer. Then, my sister and her husband stopped by to grab a couple of finish nails for something they were repairing, and suddenly there’s a “work party” in progress, experimenting with all manner of paint removal techniques and chemicals.

And there I was, in a moment much like the one at the edge of a swimming pool, when the body is bent for the dive and the weight has shifted, and there is no turning back—the plunge ensues.

And it was clear that if I didn’t quickly call “halt” and stop my family’s hands, this trailer and my plans for it would move forward with a force outside myself.

I let the work proceed.

I had an interesting idea last night, as I was settling in for a night’s sleep. I considered grabbing my phone and recording a voice memo, but talked myself out of it, believing I was still plenty awake to recall my thought in the morning.

Yep, you guessed it. This morning I had no clue what my brilliant idea had been the night before. I could have saved it simply with my phone … and did not.

Well. But that did get me to thinking about how much I do use my phone, for non telephonic type things. Non-communication things, even.

My friends who were early adopters of the iPhone, well, I thought they were just a little too “victim of technology” and I just couldn’t see the point in doubling my phone bill just to have that funny looking flat phone.

Silly me.

I wouldn’t say that I am addicted to my iPhone, but I do use it to:

• find my way around—A LOT—with the Google map feature (a lot!)
• keep track of my appointments
• manage my grocery shopping list
• assemble in one place all those movies and books that people suggest
• keep odd notes related to friends and family, e.g., the secret codes to shut off a house alarm
• take photos, photos, photos, photos
• get my bearings with a compass
• check the weather forecast, in my city and where friends live, too
• carry my music for driving in the car, and
• someday I will use the voice memo feature to capture my random ideas

I’m still astounded by the monthly bill for this phone service, but when I really think about how much my quirky, forgetful self uses this thing and how much easier it’s made my life, I think it’s worth it.

More talk today about preservation. This time Suesanne and I were comparing notes about how each of our great grandfathers would cut and save ice in the winter for use in the summer. It must have been early 1900s when they were doing this, her great grandfather in North Dakota and mine in western Montana.

I wish I had all the stories my dad used to tell of those times. He was there, and took part, and knew about the tools and techniques. Simply genius really, what could be done without electricity.

Great grandpa also cut wood in the summer, and it was a symbiotic industry–the shavings from wood cutting were used to  insulate and preserve the winter ice.

I just finished reading “Three Cups of Tea”. In a (unjust) nutshell, this is a true story of a man who builds relationships and then schools in the remote and poor villages of Pakistan and Afghanistan. And if any images will remind me of the abundances of my life, the stories of how little these peoples have will shine an immense spotlight on my good fortune.

I have two prominent vices. One is my propensity to make things from “nothing”–I love creating “art” from random and “insignificant” ingredients. Ribbon. Buttons. Rusted bottle caps. Pages from children’s arithmetic lessons. Of course my inclination to use such ingredients means that I must gather and store them. Honestly, I’m not a hoarder, but I do see beauty and potential in humble things, and am often loathe to part with them; they do stack up.

My second vice is an appreciation of the labor and love that goes into making some things–early American furniture, hand-thrown pottery, Chinese jade carvings, mouth-blown crystal goblets. My appreciation for the human effort of creating things makes it difficult for me to part with things, if I don’t feel they are “going to a good home”. And unfortunately, I inherited from my parents an enormous quantity of lovingly crafted items. Because I had already accumulated my own household of beautiful things, my inheritance overwhelmed my “wealth”.

Combine vice one and vice two, and I am weighted with an undeniable over-abundance.

And contrast this abundance with the simpler lives of my fore-fathers, and I am confused–how did my life get to this, and what do I do about it.

Have I “saved” too much stuff, and it’s time to find another way for my life? I believe it is.

In this month’s theme of “saved” and on the eve of the three-year anniversary of my wedding, I am contemplating that thing I was unable to save—my marriage.

Tomorrow is July 7, 2010. I was married on 07-07-07—ostensibly a favorably auspicious date—to a man with whom I believed my life was destined to be entwined. Our wedding invitation was inscribed with a haiku I had written using the word we thought believed our relationship: inevitable.

my heart and your heart
twining our lives together
inevitable

I really believed my own propaganda. It truly seemed that his desires for his life were on point with my desires for my own life. I thought I had found—not the man who would “complete” me but, the man who would encourage me, support me in my unfolding. And I would do the same for him.

Today, I think I still believe in all that, but my (ex) husband has made it clear that he does not. And I tired of trying to sway him, and I let myself become beat down by his need to un-do us; I lost the heart to try and “save” us.

So here I sit today, ten months since our final split, trying to come up with a new direction for my life. I’m having a damn difficult time sorting through my interests and talents and desires to find which direction I shall turn next. And this may sound pitiful, but I still feel broken-hearted, and that makes it difficult to feel enthused.

For now I will sit seaside and watch the sky and water turn the colors of dusk, while the swallows swoop through the driftwood, harvesting their dinners, and I will work on soothing my heart, rather than planning my life.