~vulnerability~

Today I checked another item off my s-l-o-w-l-y dwindling list of things to do regarding my new home:  I had the geotechnical survey done to determine the required depth of my new home's pilings.  The guys doing the test were patient with my constant questioning, and even let me jump on board of their rig and see what they were doing.  Based on what they observed in the field, it looks like I have about 12 or so feet of sand, followed by about 12 feet of clay - then back to sand (with a bit of clay mixed in).  The water table was at ~6.5', which is actually pretty low for around here, and was surprising since I'm so close to the water (coastal marshes).

This was indeed a test though of another kind.  It was the first piece of equipment that came into my garden - the cone penetration rig was on a large and long flatbed truck, and the rig had tires with metal ridges that destroyed all of the grass that it went across.  I'm not so worried about the grass - I recognize that a certain amount of it (aka all of it around the building site) will be destroyed - but it's the plants that worry me, and I cringed as the rig rolled past a crepe myrtle, clipping off a few small branches, and when it pushed up against the six foot gardenia.  Overall, the trees and shrubs and ferns and perennials faired well - but it was the left side of my front gate (and post) that splintered as the end of the flatbead truck clipped it on the way out.  I found myself not minding at all - my garden made it through, and anyway - the company had someone back out at my place not even two hours later, fixing the gate post with a smile.  I laughed and told him that I almost felt guilty, that he was making it better than it had been, to which he responded that it was a beautiful day and that he liked doing a good job.  It's hard not to appreciate that kind of attitude.  Now, within a few weeks, I'll receive a technical report describing the land that I garden on down to about 40 feet.

I also shed a few more possessions today - assisted by the lab's eclair-making postdoc and nanoparticle-examining doctoral student.  I gave some bookshelves to the postdoc - ones that I decided not to carry over to the new place - and while he was out at my place, he also picked up several of my larger potted plants that he volunteered to care from during the winter months, since the Airstream isn't exactly the place for a good-sized bromeliad, cardamom ginger, jade, pink variegated lemon (Citrus limon 'Eureka Variegated Pink') or topiaried Australian mint bush (Prostanthera rotundifolia).  While they were here, they also helped me take down a few heavier items from my deck - a shallow clay pot that contains small rocks from just about every river I've ever touched with my bare toes, a teak table that they placed in front of the Airstream (which was renamed my 'breakfast nook') - as well as a few other plants (a passion vine and a hibiscus) that I'll try to keep warm and covered myself.  My deck, which wraps around over half of my place - is now close to bare, and after they left I sat in one of the few remaining chairs in the warm sun - wishing that I could spend the rest of the day there, feeling warm and quiet and still.  But instead I had to head to the lab for my final class of the semester.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment of the day was when the eclair-maker and nanoparticle-examiner showed me how to unlock the Airstream's awning - and for the first time, I saw it unfurled it in all of it's travel-trailer glory.  It's blue, with a ruffled front edge (as one would only hope) - and although it was pretty dirty, there were no tears or rips in it - and we all quickly agreed that it transformed the Airstream from...an Airstream into a home - and I have to admit that it was somehow comforting to me to see this extension of my new temporary home's space.  Tonight it was again rolled back up, because it is missing the pins that keep the awning poles locked out and in place - but I'll try and find some pins that work this weekend.  The outside of the Airstream is now a collection of live oak acorns, assorted bird feeders that need to be relocated from the soon-to-be demolished deck, beach chairs and an assortment of teak furniture that will become a valuable extension of the Airstream's living space.  The place is a mess right now - oh let's face it, my entire place is chaotic - and I don't sense that changing until a few more things are moved, and until a few things are re-arranged and connected.  But today progress was made, and that feels good.

~~~~~

I felt strange today, seeing my plants driving off in the back of someone's truck.  This shedding of one's possessions is an awkward process - they are just plants, plants can be propagated, returned, purchased - but I have been telling myself that alot lately:  this is temporary, this shifting and dispersing of one's surroundings.  But I must confess to a certain amount of insecurity in not being blanketed by things that are familiar (and comforting) to me.  Plants provide comfort, as do books and art and photographs of people in frames that I care for deeply.  The cross on my wall that for years was above the desk of a friend long dead of Lou Gehrig's disease.  The African tempera painting on muslin titled 'Palm Wine Show' purchased by an ex during a trip to Africa - deep, vibrant colors of a celebration with liquids flowing out of beautifully shaped gourds.  What I have to remind myself, as another layer of material belongings depart the premises, is that I am, like everyone is, larger than the possessions that surround me - larger and stronger and more interesting - and that in their absence, my world will be lighter - although for awhile I will be viewing it from more vulnerable, seemingly naked, eyes.  With every item that leaves here, my heightened sense of my own vulnerability rises - but all the while I acknowledge the growing sense of excitement that comes from a new journey to be experienced while carrying a lighter load.

~~~~~

Gonna change my way of thinking,
Make myself a different set of rules.
Gonna change my way of thinking,
Make myself a different set of rules.
Gonna put my good foot forward,
And stop being influenced by fools.

Bob Dylan, Gonna Change My Way of Thinking
   

Comments

[Christopher C NC]

There will be good days when it is a marvel to feel so free and bad days when you long for the comfort of routine surroundings that hold time and memory in simple objects.

The knowledge that once you are resettled and stuff will again begin to accumulate has the same good and bad kind of feeling.

[Pam]

Christopher, yes - you're right. At times this feels remarkably freeing, then a few moments later I'll feel a type of panic that I have never felt before. I'll be relieved, I think, to finally settle into the Airstream. Perhaps that time is just about a month away now.