happiness – Jenny Wren

Tuesday Update – In the Thick of It

We discovered a dawn redwood seedling in a cage full of weeds. Gonna have to clean that up so the little one can thrive!

I do wish I had more news from the writing front to share this week, but I do not. Okay, a bit of a lie. I reworked about 6,000 words of Ragman into a better form. I was hitting a wall. Not so much a wall, but a stumbling block. The issue? I had three strong characters all vying for the limelight – Ragman, Blue, and Indigo (yes, there is a reason why two characters are named after colors that lie close together on the spectrum, although one character is a mostly human woman and the other is a dog, well, a Grim to be exact). Holy run-on parenthetical, Batman!

Anyway, I worked out the head butting that was occurring with these three so that they can share the stage in a mostly sensible manner, so I hope to start moving forward with the story itself this week. I hope to give a more concrete update next week!

My reading has been all over the place. I am almost finished with TJ Klune’s “In the Lives of Puppets.” Barring something horrible happening in the last couple of chapters, which I am not concerned about because I adore Klune’s work, this will be a whole-hearted recommendation for anyone looking for a bit of queer fantasy lit. I typically describe Klune’s work as pre-hopecore. Why? Because he catches that fleeting bit of time when the dystopia is dying and hope is just about to be sown anew. Klune’s work leaves me heartbroken but hopeful, which is quite powerful since the real world we live in also leaves me heartbroken but overflowing with hope each and every day.

I’ve also been plowing through various bits of non-fiction. I finished my re-read of Mark Boyle’s Moneyless Manifesto, I will finish Live Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Economies tonight or tomorrow, and I will begin Eisenstein’s Sacred Economics tonight or tomorrow. The first two are recommends, for sure, and the last one likely will be as well. At least for those of my readers that are sick and tired of what the industrial revolution has resulted in, economically speaking.

Seriously – we industrialized just so we can make squishy toys and Pokemon cards? Really? This is why I read hopecore fantasy for relaxation, people!

Finally…FINALLY…we are doing so much work on the property. We dug out a sawmill from 18 wheelbarrow loads of partially composted sawdust. It had been overtaken by blackberries that had rooted in the sawdust (the sawmill sits atop asphalt, so the blackberries couldn’t root any deeper thankfully). We have hauled so much scrap to the brush pile that we may need to build a new one. We also discovered an entire sequoia tree buried underneath blackberries at the foot of our lane. The tree is healthy, and will likely be more so now that it is exposed to the light.

We also found time to start a batch of cherry wine, to dehydrate 15 pounds of rhubarb, to celebrate Mozy’s birthday (my partner), to pass all of my university courses this quarter, tend to the garden, do general (non-clean-up) yard work, work at the bookstore, drink beer and play darts, practice violin, and somehow, miraculously, to sleep.

Summer is both my favorite season and my busiest, which is exactly how it should be!

Go forth in hope, friends!

Tuesday Update — Time Off

I took a week off, simply because we all sometimes need to take a week off. A week off from blogging or publishing an essay doesn’t mean a week off from life, of course. I fit a lot of living into the week, although most of that wasn’t with a pen in hand or in front of a keyboard.

No, my week “off” was spent tending these beautiful 12 acres that we are privileged to share with the owner, our good neighbor and friend. We cleaned up the orchard, so that it can continue to flourish and provide 90 percent of our fruit needs (and desires). We did battle with the blackberry hedges lining the lane before they devoured all.

{Note: I have a deep belief that blackberries will eventually be classified as carnivorous. They envelop and ensnare all who venture too closely to their thorns. As their hapless prey writhes and dies in the bramble, the bodies then decompose and feed the soil, and thus the (carnivorous) blackberry canes can feast.}

We cleaned up areas of our neighbor’s property that he has trouble tending to, because aging is a bitch. We weeded and trimmed, and swept out areas where accumulation tends to, well, accumulate. Much of the debris was organic, with the worst bits going to the brush and mulch pile in the woods, and the best bits going to the compost pile. What wasn’t organic was sorted, cleaned, recycled, or disposed of, as was fitting.

I can look out my window and see the results of our labor. It feels good. This is why I will never be anti-work, although I am anti-pointless work for profit instead of for good sense. There is a difference and there is nuance. It is best that we remember that.

Some of the week was spent on indoor pursuits. I dehydrated a metric ton (slight exaggeration) of rhubarb for snacking and baking. We started a batch of cherry wine. I baked bread, lots of bread. Our daily loaf, of course, along with a standard loaf for grilled sandwiches and lots of buns for summer use. These go in the freezer, a useful contraption. The mending pile is empty, all the socks darned and the seams repaired. I even began working on the gift list items for the latter half of the year!

You see, I spend a lot of time working with my brain, for what it is worth. Sometimes it is better to work with one’s hands. This is the type of week it was, and my hands and body are grateful for the chance to be useful.

Life is for living. Go live it!

As always, yours in hope,

Tuesday Update – Compromise

A harvest from a year or two ago. Hoping for another abundant summer!

Everything can and will change. It doesn’t matter if it is our own hand that sets change in motion, it can still be a bit discombobulating when it descends with one fell swoop.

I was swooped by change, which I set in motion, on Friday. The swoop came in the form of a job — wage pay — which was something I had hoped to be done with when I left the plant nursery last autumn.

It’s only part time. It is at a bookstore, thankfully. It will eat up some of my writing and living hours. I’m ambivalent, but right now a wage is integral to survival on our own terms.

Wish me luck.

Writing Updates:

My weekly piece on Medium is live. I took it easy this week and simply polished and printed one of the rambling pages from my journal. If you read it, you can see how I tend to organize my thoughts on paper when I think no one will ever read it.

How Can We Opt Out of the System That Is Killing Us All?

Most of my words this week, those not destined for my personal journal at least, went to my friend the Ragman. Literally. He finally stepped out of the shadows fully alive and ready to chat. Over the course of thousands of words, he revealed who he was (mostly), how he was, and even a bit of why he was. Not all of it, of course. A fellow has to keep a bit of his mystery.

He showed me the rules for his universe and introduced me to the web of hope, which stretches out along the Ley lines that connect time and place, moment by moment. I finally understand the world he has been inviting me to see.

I don’t really understand him, but I’m not sure if anyone really can. I’ll share a bit soon, but not yet.

Reading Updates:

I finished Katherine Hibbert’s Free. I will no longer link to it, nor will I give it further press after this. It was an engaging read, but something about it was setting off alarm bells. Perhaps it was the way that she scrounged after money the entire time she was squatting. Perhaps it was her refusal to hold any sort of ideology beyond getting whatever she could for free. Whatever it was, I decided to look up the author.

Ooooh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Seems to me that she is a sell out and traitor of the worst kind. Apparently, her squatting adventure was simply a buildup to launching her own “guardianship”company, which has been in the news for fee/rent-gouging “guardians,” who are basically tenants with absolutely no rights who are “hired” to live in empty properties to keep squatters out. Hired in this case means unpaid. In fact, the guardians pay a fee (rent, if we are honest in our nomenclature) for the privilege of “guarding” the property. I find it sickening.

For nonfiction, I’ve moved on to re-reading two books: The Moneyless Manifesto by Mark Boyle, and Living the Good Life by Helen and Scott Nearing. Since I have read these both before, I can already recommend them. Both books have some issues. Boyle’s only issue is that one needs a healthy dose of idealism when reading his words, which is only a problem if the reader lets the idea of perfect get in the way of good enough. The issue with any of the Nearing’s writing is well known, and based off the fact that they glossed over some important details on how they financed the “good life,” but there is still so much good information in there (and I believe their hearts were in the right place), that I still recommend it as foundational reading.

As for nonfiction, I am still working through Sanderson’s Elantris. As I mentioned last week, I am on a nonfiction kick, so I am only reading a chapter or two a day.

Survive & Thrive

Beyond a wage job, we’ve been thriving a bit around here. The rhubarb wine gets siphoned into a demijohn today so that it can start its long ferment.

I’m working through the last of the fruit I canned last summer. A jar of blackberries went into two batches of scones, which I shared with some friends when I attended a get-together at one of their homes last week. I also present these friends with some jars of jam. As for me, I came home with a bottle of nice sparkling wine.

The garden is planted. Unfortunately I didn’t start any seeds this year, since I was unsure how I was going to garden with no existing beds and a deer issue. The procurement of the raised deck beds from the local Buy Nothing group solved the challenge. I planted lettuce, spinach, peas, cucumber, beans, carrots, and zucchini from seed, as I always have luck direct sowing these plants. Our older son’s partner gifted me tomato starts (and I returned the favor with some young raspberry canes and plant pots).

I visited a local grower for the rest, and did well. For minimal cash outlay ($8.71) I was able to get eight cabbage starts, four pepper starts, and 24 onion starts. We already have garlic growing in the raspberry and blueberry beds, as well as a healthy strawberry patch. For herbs we have sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, and tarragon. There are also elderberry and currant bushes, although these are still young and not very productive yet. I’ll expand more next year, but this is a good start.

We are still harvesting nettles and rhubarb, of course. Life is good, with the only thorn being the need for a wage job. That is the cost when one is on rented land, though. As much as I despise it, cash — not effort nor personal worth — is king.

Yours in hope,

Tuesday Update – Digging In

My image. Mine, mine, mine! Okay…I’ll share it. Enjoy!

Blue sky. No wind. A perfect day in a perfect place.

The problem with perfect days and perfect places is that they can never last. Eventually the wind and the clouds return. The rain sheets down. The river floods. Developers destroy, using a method that they call creating, yet is anything but.

Still. Today is perfect. Tomorrow will also be perfect. Perhaps here, perhaps somewhere else. That’s okay, I’m told. It’s progress, they say.

Maybe, maybe not.

Writing Updates:

I’m still publishing weekly on Medium. This week’s oeuvre is:

True Community Isn’t Pay-to-Play Go read it. I’ll wait right here for ya.

I’ve set short fiction aside, for now. The Ragman wants out. Actually, Blue and Indigo want out. And Skookum. And a few other characters that have been poking me in the brain box when I least expect.

They want out so badly, in fact, that they took up the nearly 9,000 words I wrote last week. Skookum especially. He is an old fragment of a character I wrote a few paragraphs about, for a completely unrelated project, about six years ago. I was dusting off some old files (i.e.- actually trying to clean up the ol’ hard drive for once), and stumbled across those forgotten paragraphs.

He was ready and waiting for me. He leapt out of the screen, grabbed my hand, and said, “I have something you must see.” I followed. I saw. I wrote it down. Then, in the last sentence, he sent out a call.

The Ragman heard. I didn’t realize it when I first met Skookum all those years ago, but he is part of the Ragman’s universe.

How exciting!

Reading Updates:

For me, reading goes through phases. I usually bob along finishing two or so books a week. Usually a fiction read and a non-fiction read. But, every once in a while things go haywire and I find myself reading LOTS of books at once.

We just entered a once in a while period.

I finished A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny. Exactly what I expect of an Agent Gamache mystery, no more, no less. Although, I will admit I am having a hard time suspending disbelief, the more of these books I read. How many murders can happen in such a small town that mainly affect the same six people over and over and over again?

I also finished The Way Home by Mark Boyle. I can never recommend this book enough. This is probably my 12th time reading it. I seem to cycle through it again every few months. I am not sure why I find it so appealing, it just feels right.

I am reading:

Poor Richard’s Women by Nancy Rubin Stuart. A very engaging read! We had a power outage for a few hours last night, and I easily read over half the book before the battery in my booklight gave out. Highly recommending it so far.

Free: Adventures At the Margins of Society by Katherine Hibbert. You can read it for free on archive.org.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. More to come after I finish it!

Life Without Money: Building Fair and Sustainable Communities by Nelson and Timmerman.

Survive & Thrive

I haven’t changed much in the previous seven days. I still hate the fact that our lives are controlled by (fake) silver coins, colorful pieces of paper, and digital pips in a bank’s database. But, I’m also a realist. So I recently got a job.

You heard me right. An actual job with regular paychecks. Don’t worry. I’m a bookseller now, working part time in a book store. A real, brick and mortar bookstore that sells real, paper books that are, to the best of our knowledge, written by real, actual human beings.

This doesn’t mean that I am giving up on the Mowse project idea, nor am I going to stop writing or publishing. It just means that even with my highfalutin ideals of a moneyless, egalitarian, eco-utopian world, I still need to eat and sleep in this world. And being able to eat and sleep is necessary to the effectiveness of the work I try to do to unravel systems of greed, stolen privileges, and eco-human destruction.

Try not to be too disappointed in me, please.

If it helps, I also started a batch of rhubarb wine, baked all our own bread, hung out with a rough sleeper (and did what I could to make their day a little less rough), published a piece on those highfalutin ideals, took care of the property I am lucky enough to call home for now, looked after a neighbor, spent lots of time with my family and friends, stood up to a bully, used public transportation, cut back on our energy dependency a small amount, harvested nettles for tea, and took as little part in the monetary greed economy as possible.

So, I’m trying!

Tuesday Update – Writer vs. Sunshine

The woods behind our home are carpeted in Pacific bleeding hearts. It’s much lovelier in person!

These non-stop blue skies are going to ruin the northwest girl. My expectations are being compromised. This may be the first spring that I am longing for rain instead of my usual longing for sunshine!

It is hard to do things indoors when the weather is so fine. Fortunately, there is a lot of work to do outside, too.

Writing Updates:

I have been sinking deeper into a big writing project. That’s right, The Ragman. Blue, Indigo, and the Ragman himself are becoming most insistent about their story being told. Thus, I must oblige!

What does this mean? My short story output and submissions have nearly come to a full halt. I’m even having a bit of trouble focusing on my regular nonfiction essays. Having trouble, but still managing to soldier on a bit!

If you need something to read, I put out an argument against clock-watching, with the help of the neighborhood dads (the jovial cock-robins). You can read Living Life On Robin Time, free of charge, on Medium.

The newsletter has been a tough nut to crack, but I still have this feeling in my bones that it is time to write one. You can read, once again free of charge, about my struggles with the newsletter, Substack, and (un)social media expectations. Read it here: I Don’t Know What I’m Doing On Substack, and I’m Cool With That.

Reading Updates:

Much of my reading is still taken up with that required for class. In that vein, I read an assortment of Phillis Wheatley-Peters’ poems, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and part of the Decameron.

For pure entertainment, I finished Tress by Brandon Sanderson. This was my intro to Sanderson’s writing, and I must say I will be back for more! I loved the style, particularly of the narrator. It reminded me of the non-Xanth works of Piers Anthony, as well as the Princess Bride, but it was still a perfectly unique work that didn’t feel like it was aspiring to be anything but itself.

Survive & Thrive:

Mowse the kei truck is still in the shop. No word back yet on whether he can be repaired. Fingers crossed, because I would love to begin acting upon the idea I mentioned in last week’s update.

As for surviving and thriving around here, we are doing our best. We spent the weekend building a sunshade for our deck. The goal was to spend no money, and we achieved it! We built it from old lumber (we always stop to pick up lumber, whether it is from a free pile on the curb or lumber that has dropped off along the roadside from a poorly secured load). We did need one piece that we didn’t have, but a neighbor came through for us with just what we needed! I will spend the morning today painting the sunshade frame with leftover paint from past projects.

It’s also the week to put in the garden, so I will be busy between writing, school, and other tasks. Growing your own food, free of the industrial system, is a radical and revolutionary act, so I will find a way to get to it all!

Go forth in hope, my friends,

Tuesday Update: Mobile Creative Third Space Dreams

(Not Mowse, but similar) Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com

We had our first unbroken week of fine spring weather here in the perpetually damp Northwest. For those not privy to the PNW mindset, lots of sunlight makes us a bit crazy. We know that it will never last, so we run outside to soak up as much of it as possible.

Here on the little homestead, this meant lots of weeding and outdoor projects. We managed to sand down and repaint our entire deck, as well. This, of course, meant we had to host a bonfire and cookout. We also attended a bonfire that friends hosted.

Why yes, I do smell perpetually like a campfire. Why do you ask?

It also means that I am behind on my usual writing output. Life is lived, and sometimes the living of it leaves little time for writing about it!

Writing Updates:

Some work was put in on the novel project (working title “Ragman”). I’m still playing around with characters and plot, so most of this work went towards character development, but I also wrote a few sample scenes so that I could start to get a better feel for how all the pieces will work together.

I’ve outlined and begun a few essays, which will be hitting Medium and Substack next week.

Reading Updates:

Spending time working outside also means I slowed down on reading a bit this week.

I am still working my way through “Tress” and “The Future Is Degrowth.”

I also finished “The Way Home” by Mark Boyle. I reread this book every six months or so. It’s a comfort tool at this point. It is also an inspiration, because although I don’t want to live exactly like Mark, I do wish to emulate many of his choices in my own ways. This is Mark’s last public work, which he wrote in a note with a pencil after he decided to follow a life without wasteful modern tech. He contrasts his journey against the Blasket Islanders, a group of people in Ireland that lived cut off from the modern world in many ways until they were forced to evacuate their homes in the 1950s. I consider this book one of the great inspirational works in my life, so of course I recommend it!

Survive & Thrive:

It’s hard not to thrive when the sun is dealing out photons like candy. Vitamin D is my favorite drug!

My thoughts have turned towards finding more ways to cope within the confines of a capitalistic system that doesn’t value, well, anything of true worth. Unfortunately, the system is set up in such a way that fully eschewing it and remaining part of community is difficult. So, I constantly seek ways to live between the lines of capitalism and to thrive within its margins.

I’m playing with a brainstorm right now. I have a little Japanese Kei truck named Mowse. This used to be my work truck when I was gardening, but the economy and my failing rotator cuff is only going to allow me to work for a couple of regular clients going forward.

What to do with Mowse?

I’m still noodling, but here is my idea. What if Mowse stands for Mobile Outreach Wonder SpacE? And, what if this mobile space showed up at local parks or other public areas, similar to an ice cream truck. But, instead of ice cream, what if this space set up an arts and crafts table, where kids and adults could come and create something beautiful and happy, together? What if this space was actually a mobile third space, free of charge, for people to gather and create an impromptu (and, even, perhaps, a lasting) community?

Yes? Yes!

We’ll make books from recycled items, share poetry, have music jams, create art from what is available, read stories to young and the young at heart, and teach the kids and the kids at heart new ways to make, well, anything!

Maybe we’ll add some display racks to the back of Mowse. Sell some art and writing, but not really sell. Suggested price, sure, but I imagine a “pay what you can” model, especially since most of our creations in this household take time but very little money since we scavenge nearly everything we have. I’m not aiming to make money, so much as making sure we can continue to provide art and words and craft and community to everyone!

Things are hard out there. We gotta make it better.

As always, go forth in hope!

Go Outside Every Damn Day

It’s not a choice, it’s an imperative

What do rain, sun, and snow have in common? If you said they are all types of weather, then you are only half right. The full answer is that they are all great types of weather for being outside.

That’s right, rain and snow can be just as lovely as sunshine.

Not the outdoorsy type? Who cares. Is it raining? So what. You have an overriding fear of moths? Grow up.

I’m not saying this to be unkind. I’m saying this because the kindest thing I can do is to tell you to go outside nearly every damn day. This isn’t about some study making the daily news rounds, although there are more than a few of those. It’s not even about vitamin D. Well, not entirely.

It’s about humility, awe, and being true to your most primal inner human nature.

It’s about being fully alive.

Continue reading for free on Medium…

I Am Not Special

These four words will save your life

Chances are, if your life was anything like mine, you were told by someone at some point that you were special. Usually, it’s a parent, grandparent, or other adult who first says something like this to a child. Sometimes it’s a teacher. Sometimes it is twaddle from an esteem-building children’s story.

“You’re special. You can do anything you want.”

“You can be anything you like when you grow up, because you are special!”

“Don’t worry about what that bully said; they are just jealous because you are so special.”

“You aren’t like the other girls (or guys), you’re special.”

However it is worded, it somehow seeps into our psyche. The world is comprised of special individuals like us, and then there is everyone else. For some reason, we never stop to consider that everyone is walking around feeling special.

Everyone thinks they are the main character. Yet, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that none of us is the main character. Main characters live happily or unhappily ever after. All of us die at the end of our story.

No ever after.

Nada.

Continue reading on Medium for free…

Pumpkins and Spice, Everything Ain’t Nice

Why can’t I love autumn?

I gaze through the square frame of my window. It makes reality into a painting of a magical world beyond my warm kitchen.

The lawn is green again, now that the summer heat is gone and the fall rains have begun again in earnest. Bright yellow pin oak leaves and rich crimson maple leaves dot the emerald lawn like candy sprinkles. The beauty is almost too much to take in at once.

Like a coven of merry witches, the evergreen cones of the giant sequoias sway in the wind as they encircle the yard. They are wise women sent to watch over us and protect us from the worst that the winter gales will bring. Before them stand the skeletal branches of maple, alder, birch, and oak. A few tattered but joyfully vibrant leaves still cling to their outstretched fingers, all the more shocking against the listless gray sky above.

I cannot deny that autumn is a time of immense beauty.

Continue reading on Medium for Free…

It’s not a choice, it’s an imperative

These four words will save your life

Why can’t I love autumn?

By doing so, we become rich