Figuring it out – Life on Fantasy Bay

08 Jun 2023 14 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in Bali, grannys landing, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

I wanted to title this post, Settling in on Fantasy Bay, but that was a tad too optimistic. It’s not quite where I’m at.

When I moved back to the family farm of my childhood, I wondered what life here would be like as an adult. Where would I fit in? I couldn’t conjure a scenario. Nothing felt familiar.

To be fair, I didn’t have much time to dwell on it. From the moment I arrived, I focused all my energy on the shell of an abandoned hunting shack, hoping to magically turn it into a home.

I put my body through nine months of physical hell, climbing up and down ladders, crawling on my knees, scooting on my butt, pounding nails, lifting and dragging plywood, sheetrock, flooring, siding, and falling into bed at night, utterly spent.

For six of those months, I lived next door with my sister and brother-in-law, who were on site beside me, doing even more of what I was doing every single day.

We worked through fall, but as the veggies in the extensive garden matured, there were days devoted to the harvest. Our trio picked, cleaned, chopped, canned, and froze, all the carrots, beans, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, onions, kale, corn, apples, raspberries, and strawberries. Occasionally, a relative or friend would come by for coffee. At those times, work ceased for a blissful couple of hours.

Then weather turned bitter. The garden froze. It was back to the house project and more of the same until finally…

I had heat. The walls and ceilings were sheetrocked and painted. There was a composting toilet, a fifty-gallon water tank, and enough plumbing to supply water from there to the bathroom sink. I had a fridge, a microwave, a rug, and a massive sleeper sofa.

Valentine’s Day dawned with a celebratory move into my new home. There were kitchen cabinets but no countertops, little by way of furnishings, and no stove. As I occupied the space, energy shifted. Now I was on my own clock. The unfinished pieces demanded attention, but I could easily procrastinate. I began to imagine a gentler life.

I soldiered slowly on. W uninstalled the ineffective, tankless water heater and replaced it with a 2.5 gallon tank model that delivered H-O-T water!

He put in the shower.

I bought unfinished butcherblock countertops, sanded, stained, and polyurethaned the heck out of them.

W installed those and the kitchen sink. My stove was delivered.

If you will recall, I have no well. By trial and error, I perfected the method of carrying water in one-gallon milk jugs, twenty at a time, from their house, to fill my under-the-sink container, something I’ll be doing once every two weeks until the end of time.

More furniture arrived, and Gwen helped me assemble it. The counter-height table and stools went together like a dream. She’s much better at following directions than I am. But the ungainly hall tree challenged our skills and our patience to the max.

Just as I began to relax into the cushy refinement of a job well done…

And just as I began to picture a life of ease…

The Bear arrived.

No…. If you’re thinking along the lines of my monkey nightmares in Bali, this was not that. Bear is a long-time family friend affectionately nicknamed for his resemblance in stature to that animal. Years ago, he bought twenty acres of this farm with the intent of retiring here. That time had come.

In a level of excitement resembling mine when I first laid eyes on my hunting shack, he looked at the falling down barn on the property and visualized paradise.

Knowing I could never directly repay the hundreds of volunteer hours Gwen and W spent helping me (karma doesn’t necessarily operate that way) I set to work helping Bear with his dream. The universe had seen fit to bring a remodeling project as daunting in scope as mine. Once again, I was crawling on my knees, scooting on my butt, lifting and dragging rotted plywood and dank insulation to twenty-yard dumpsters, putting my aged body through physical hell, paying back.

Meanwhile, I’m getting clear about what life at Granny’s Landing on Fantasy Bay will look like. In fact, one word pretty well sums it up:

Projects.

And just to make certain there’s no shortage of energy-sucking, back-breaking tasks, I’ve started an addition to my tiny house: a garage, entryway, and deck. Home Depot delivered the first load of materials last week. (Click the link below to watch the video)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/UvMD1mbCCp6c99jt8

Gone forever is the relaxed, sedentary, writer’s life that was my existence in Bali. This chapter is about pushing physical limits, laughing in the face of the seventy-three year old in the mirror who thought she’d retired.

But it’s also about community – being a contributing part of something vital, something bigger than I am. Learning new skills. Getting filthy sweaty dirty and not caring what I look like.

I’ve peeled back a whole new layer of self-discovery revealing the rest of who I am: physically strong, capable, gritty, and unadorned…

In Bali, I discovered true happiness.

Here…

I’ve found freedom.

Progress Report from Granny’s Landing

07 Sep 2022 13 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in 2022, Bali, grannys landing, Mexico, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , , ,

After living in dense communities near pulsing commerce and throbbing nightlife in both Bali and Mexico, I could only theorize about peace. Quiet, for me, was closing all doors and windows against noise seepage and turning on Leonard Cohen.

What would it be like at Granny’s Landing with a mile-long gravel road to reach the blacktop, and the closest neighbor also that far away? What about the twenty-minute drive separating me from the nearest town, Palisade, MN, population 167, with a church, a gas station, and the local pub? I couldn’t imagine it.

Now that I’m here, my understanding of quiet has been radically redefined.

Deep and profound, the hush stretches unbroken across fields to the horizon. Sun-soaked or moon drenched, it envelops my senses and holds me in a womb-like embrace. Jangled synapses in my over-taxed nervous system relax. Sometimes crickets, sometimes the rattling bugle calls of cranes passing overhead, remind me that other life exists.

Actually, that’s not quite true about the distant neighbor. My sister’s front door is a short stroll from mine – like half a city block at most. But Gwen and W are family. They occupy a completely different category.

I’m staying with them while my dwelling takes shape and they’ll be my main social scene in the years ahead. We have extended morning coffee and hash over the latest breaking news. At five o’clock witching hour, we convene on their screened porch to recap the day’s events. Wine flows and our conversation morphs into deep philosophical discussions while sunset outlines the treetops in gold.

Wonderful family! They know what needs to be done, how to do it, and who to call if they don’t. They have a seemingly endless supply of saws, drills, hammers of all sizes, and motivation to get my house built. (I would, too, if I were hosting me!)

But when it came to installing my new windows, we needed help. At 10:00 a.m. this morning, reinforcements appeared on the scene. A van and a car lumbered toward me, a mini-parade kicking up a trail of dust. My construction crew had arrived.

Lofty, his right-hand man, Dante, and Gene, whose role remains a bit of a mystery, unloaded an impressive stream of power tools, looked at my plans, and groaned. “You want six windows across the front here? And three more in this wall? Nine windows?”

Of course, I want nine windows. The view is spectacular. I love light. And I think I mentioned that number when I hired you to install them.

I didn’t say it, but I thought it. Instead, I asked if there was a problem with my drawings because the installation of all my windows appeared to work just fine on paper. The three of them studied the diagram again and agreed that it could be done. I left them to it for a few hours. When I returned, the southeast wall as I had first seen it like this…

had been transformed to this!

The vision I’ve carried in my dreams for months, inviting light and sky and the tranquility of pastoral views into my house, is manifesting.

Granny’s Landing on Fantasy Bay – The Countdown

22 Jul 2022 16 Comments

by writingforselfdiscovery in 2022, Covid, virus, Mexico, The Farm, wisdom, Writing Tags: , , , ,

As of today, I have four more weeks in Mexico, then my adventures here will end. I’ll fly to Minnesota, the house will get moved onto this finished foundation platform, and life will …

…will what?

Life will be a race against winter – an all-out effort to have a warm, secure place to live as temperatures plummet. I’m almost as eager to write about that process, the ongoing saga of Granny’s Landing, as I am to experience it.

In my absence, electricity is being trenched to the site. The underground cable will follow the red line from the pole, around the white stake, to the little flag… ‘

My sister keeps me updated by sending photos like this while my brother-in-law clears brush and trees from the ditch along the roadside to widen the area so the house can pass. They met with the electric company and made arrangements. They found the house mover and ferried him around to find the most direct way to get a 20 X 22-foot structure from point A to point B. They’re tirelessly helping me. They say they’re as excited as I am to have me there. That’s my family.

Far away from the action, I tune into Tiny House Nation. I’ve never been a crowd-follower but come to find out, small houses are trending worldwide. It’s a movement and I’m part of it. I watch DIY how-to videos on YouTube, and research heating possibilities – baseboard, in-floor, mini-splits, heat storage units, and off-peak options.

What I really want is a wood-burning stove, the kind you can see into and watch the flames, like a fireplace but more efficient.

A red one.

The decor isn’t quite my aesthetic, but look how cozy that fire is!

I’ve been counseled that a stove could be a backup heat source but I’ll need something less high maintenance for the long frigid months. Something that doesn’t require chopping massive amounts of wood, hauling it, splitting it, stacking it, and, okay, okay, I get it.

Or do I?

There’s something innately appealing about that process, about not having to depend upon electricity. Being self-sufficient.

Then again, I’m seventy-two. Should that end the conversation right there? I don’t think so. I’m in excellent health, strong, able bodied, and my sister adds, Now. Okay, granted. I could do it now and when I can’t I’ll hire someone else to chop, split, and deliver firewood to my door.

These are the types of debates that are carried on continually with people who know a lot more about what I’m doing than I do. But I’m a risk taker. I love a challenge. I need a large measure of that in my life. So I’m tempted to just do it. JUST DO IT! I can always add one of those befuddling other heating systems if tending a fire proves to be too much.

I’m also told I’ll need a vehicle. Bah! Humbug! I haven’t had a car for eleven years. I’ve lived in places where I could walk to everything I needed. But they’re right. It’s thirty miles to the grocery store. There are no Lyfts or Ubers (or a trusty Ketut with his motorbike). If I must have one, I want a Jeep. Does anyone have an old Jeep they don’t need anymore? I’m serious!

Meanwhile, the succulents adorning my San Miguel rooftop suck moisture from frequent showers and grow fat. Sun-filled days kept cool by drifting festoons of fluffy white clouds lure me outside. I wander cobblestone streets meeting load-bearing donkeys and the bronzed, wizened men that tend them. Church bells, firecrackers, mariachis – two nights ago at midnight I awoke to a procession. A group of maybe thirty, maybe fifty local people paraded in the dark singing with loud, melancholy gusto to the steady beat of drums. They stood in the street in front of my house for thirty minutes, serenading the shrine located there. It was haunting. Beautiful.

At a fair last weekend, my friend bought medicinal herbs from a vendor. In the course of their conversation in Spanish, we were invited to Temazcal, a thousands-of-years-old sweat-lodge cleansing ritual performed by indigenous women in a nearby village. Thrilled, we accepted. As we walked away I said, Do you think we’ll do this naked? Barb went scurrying back to ask and returned with a look of relief. Clothing, it appears, is optional.

Remember The Sound of Music, that iconic movie starring Julie Andrews? I saw it seven times and one line from a song she sang toward the end is embedded in my memory. Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good. That’s how I feel about my life now. Since I retired it’s been touched by magic and there’s a knowing in my gut that says in spite of outrageous politics, global warming, and never-ending covid, there are plenty of good times ahead.