Oh, I’ll get into trouble for this one. Watch out for your toes, ’cause I’m a-steppin… THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is the new residence of a couple I know only very casually, but I do know them. And unless I’m really off the mark, they’re both in their late ’20s.
Somewhere in the southeastern U.S.
Many of you have homes even nicer than this, many of you don’t. We live in a rented 100-year-old house of mud, which I wouldn’t trade for the above unless that pile of bricks were mine to immediately sell. I’m sure my wife thinks it’s a wonderful home, I know her sister does. All it does for me, however, is make me roll my eyes and run for the door. Those godforsaken hedges! I’m not even remotely envious. Not that we couldn’t use more space for studios. (In fact, that could be the one thing that takes us from this favored spot with Indian artifacts, Taos Mountain views, and the best neighbors in the world…)
But when I think of those kids (and kids is what they are to me, alas) turning middle-aged before they have to, it really makes me sad. We bought our first and only house when I was 44 years old. When I was in my late 20s, everything I owned fit into the back seat of a ’62 Ford Fairlane, including my German Shepherd and a guitar. I just can’t help it — when I see people I know who aren’t even 30 yet buying a place that could house a couple dozen people in any of the countries we’ve blown up recently, I take it as another sign of what the hell is wrong in Ratfuck Nation. I know I’m supposed to look at the happy couple moving in and say “congratulations,” but I just don’t feel it. All I want to ask is “Why?” Yes, of course I realize most people aren’t like me, and I’m not accusing anyone of anything. It just has always boggled my mind that more people don’t visualize alternatives to the unsustainable, commonplace way of doing things; that we define what’s “acceptable” or “normal” in ways that are so injurious to the world at large.
Just have a gander at where we live now. The contrast is fairly stupefying, but see what you can have if you’re insane like me? And look, no money down, no grass to mow!
Summer view from poor ol’ adobe
I expect a comment or two about what a great investment housing is for people starting out. Maybe so, depending on historical cycles, or maybe exactly the opposite! Anyway, what’s this “investment” thing all about? I had gray hair before anyone ever mentioned “investment” to me in any context, and our real estate agent threatened to not sell us our house back in ’89 if we didn’t promise that it was someplace we could be happy in for the rest of our lives — that’s how concerned she was about the so-called investment value of a house. And then there’s the other thing about investments: no matter what you do, you die!
Oh well. All I really want for us is small, clean, & solar with room to work — and my wife is a musician who needs a studio for her baby grand piano. With everything else that’s right, she doesn’t have that here and can’t seem to find a suitable space, whether reality- or gumption-limited, who knows? This is a rather huge issue, and frankly, it’s up to her to uncover the cause — she mostly needs to feel I’m there for her, to listen and be supportive. I could use an office separate from the domestic space myself. One always could do better and make changes. Life is an ongoing process, not a puzzle to be solved.
So on general principles, I suppose I wouldn’t mind if someone dropped a great big ol’ house on me sometime. But most of the world can’t live like that. For that matter, most of the people in the world still don’t have goddamn telephones, never mind four bedrooms and a den. So if we insist on keeping on like this, we have to pay for it in blood.
Not ours, mostly, but doesn’t that still matter?
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It think this is relevant …
Many years ago I was listening to Australian potter and kite-maker extraordinaire, Peter Travis, talking about art grants. He believed they should only go to older artists who have already paid their dues. He then told of a time when, as a young and struggling potter, he used to carry huge heavy pots across Sydney Harbour Bridge to use a kiln big enough to fire them. In retrospect, he was glad nobody had given him a grant to build his own ‘big-enough’ kiln because he felt he had gained a lot from that trip across the bridge.
Well, exactly!
We still live in the 1300 square foot house we bought in our late 20s as our “starter” home… thought we would be here five years or so then move “up”, I decided to stay home with the kids and by the time I was done, we decided we had enough space and didn’t really need more.
I call my kids the “anti-consumers” now because they are happy with just their computers and not much else. When we almost had to bug out in the big San Diego fire a few years ago, the kids packed up their computers and some stuffed animals and were good to go. Funny, but I think it let them know how little they really needed, and us too – I packed pictures and important documents and was ready to bug out with the pets. Luckily the winds died down and we were ok, but knew four families who were homeless. Many people here lost all they had, including an artist friend who lost all her work.
Stuff is just really not all that important.
“happy is the man who is nothing” j. krishnamurti
sometimes this is misconstrued as happy is the man who has nothing. but that’s valid too.
“you got nuth’n, you got nuth’n to lose.”
Have you ever heard that song “Nothing” from the first Fugs album? I love that thing.
“Happy is the man who is nothing.” Well, he may be right, that makes me smile. I talk a good talk, but keep your eye on me: I’ll get that last piece of pie if I can.
1300 feet… that’s about the usable space we had in our old farmhouse in Maryland. There must be a little more than half that here. As for stuff, there are several chapters in Buffalo Lights dealing with just that. I gave away all my tools, for example, and I had every kind there was. There wasn’t a thing I couldn’t fix. I thought I’d rather buy new stuff than cart the old stuff here from MD, but before I knew it, money got tight, and there wasn’t any storage space anyway. So now I have almost no tools, but neither do I need them (no big homestead to take care of).
It is a peculiar thing. When I had an old John Deere lawn tractor to mow the 2.5 acres, I also needed every kind of wrench and a welding outfit. What made sense then seems like the oddest sort of intoxicating dream now.
Personally, I couldn’t be more satisfied with a small “honeycomb Hideout”!
By the way (completely off the subject)… I know it’s personal, but I would love to hear about the experience with the Lakota Medicine Man who held ceremony over your departed Landlord’s service.
so your young friends are young and not conscious, awake or aware. Yet. Or maybe never. Some people’s paths are to stay asleep in this life. All we can do is bless them on their Journey.