Being vulnerable comes at a price: there are strings attached.
Got interested in "
Pie Town" New Mexico recently. I've never been there but I'm intrigued. They get profiled now and then by various magazines (like the
Smithsonian ). I think it's because of the name. I hear it's about two buildings on the lesser traveled highway across New Mexico. Blink, and you miss it. If nothing else you stop there and get some really good pie. We haven't gone there yet because we don't have a good enough reason to go, but that may change. The tiny town was once profiled on the heels of the
great depression. I'm wanting to do a photo essay of my own. Have to overcome my shyness about asking people to share of themselves in that kind of situation too. I don't have a press pass anymore, I'm freelance now. No badge to hide behind. People want to know that they are being viewed with humanity and compassion. There's a lot of trust there when somebody offers to open up to you. We've made ourselves vulnerable lately.
Just to clear up any confusion from our last newsletter: we're not "
Vagabonds" (that's a literal quote) we have an address, we have a home, and while we've discovered quite a bit of happiness on the rural 40 acres that we occupy, we're thinking it would be better to be closer to a larger town where it would be easier to conduct our various business interests. We do travel on business at times, and sometimes just for the soul-fulfillment of seeing new sights and meeting new people, but all who wander are certainly not lost.
Something I call "poisoned pill" communicating is when somebody offers something in the guise of being helpful which is actually just an excuse to give you some grief. Maybe you've experienced this. It's similar to being handed a vanilla ice cream cone with strychnine sprinkles. Like . . . I never considered the label "Vagabond" to be a compliment, but it's just innocuous enough to escape being directly confronted over it.
Hmmm, this ice cream tastes awfully funny. We got a lot of super nice emails this week from people offering us references as we seek out alliances with healing arts centers, spiritual bookstores and the like. We also received many kind condolences over the loss of our beloved cat about a week ago,--and then we got this one weird one from a person we hadn't heard from in years, and the last interaction wasn't pleasant either. The passive-aggressive stuff is hard to read and even harder to respond to. I had to resist the desire to dissect it for you here. It's just not worth it. Lets just say, I haven't sent any emails like this lately, "Hey, Robin, you little "scamp" you, I know we haven't spoken in years, but I thought you'd want to know how great my new girlfriend Suzy is. She's a "master." You might want to hit her up for some tips. Here's her phone number."
It's difficult to even fathom the impulse to send something like that.
On the upside we got another offer from a benefactor who has faith in what we do and just wants us to see an easier time doing it. That means assisting us to relocate to a larger population center when the time and conditions are right. We may have to tone down our vagabonding ways though, in order to accept the help.
This is one of the critters out here which does not intimidate us. Well, OK, there was that one time but it was an exception.
Technically, we did spend the night in this tent. It was dark when we entered it, and light when we left it, around dawn. Sheryl had been claiming that we could sleep in a tent when we go on trips sometimes, after all, we slept in Esmeralda, our 15 foot trailer complete with 4 burner propane stove and oven, ice box, bed, little dinette area, microwave, 1500 watt electric heater, watching movies on the laptop. . . I was not convinced about our ability to rough it. However, I thought that a tent on the deck was overkill. It wasn't really, but the tent itself did not lend much to comfort. The weather was very mild, not a problem there. But it was the noise of all the local animals plus a very bright moon which made it hard to sleep. The local dogs are pretty distant, but they talked to Chloe, our cat, who was very worried that we weren't in the house after dark. Then there was the cow. He really wanted to talk. Sheryl claims there were coyotes, which I am not sure about but I thought I heard a dog much closer. The crack of dawn brought a few more sounds, and too much light. back to the house we went.
Mama Love (Sheryl) shown here being macho enough to build her own displays. She said to me, "Wow, it really is fun when you have the right tools." Which is something I have been trying to convince her of all along. Guys are not inherently better at building things than women. We take every advantage available to us: simple things like good clamps and a proper working surface, nice sharp drill bits (in this case a really good forstner bit) and a good variable speed reversible drill. I know it's intimidating and that there is some cultural bias against women doing it all with tools, but it's really rewarding and I hope that more women get encouraged to do the things that they want to do. One more tip; the vast majority of hardware store employees really want to help you out. They think it's cool that you want to do this stuff. they like your courage. If you have some boyfriend or other male helper with no patience for teaching you: do both of you a favor and take him out of the mix, find a better advisor, no harm, no foul.
I had to tell Sheryl to "come and see the pretty snake" under a Juniper, some time before bed. I mean, he is pretty, and he is not dangerous. But right about now I never expect Sheryl to put the tent on the actual ground near an actual juniper tree.
Chloe, our other cat, the one who is in good health and surviving has charms of her own. One of these charms is "draping". She wraps herself around things: shown here getting cozy with my laser printer. She was up most of the night crying at the open window for Sheryl and I to come back from wherever it was that we disappeared to. The dogs answered her. And the cow. The snakes, lizards and cottontails kept pretty quiet and the hummingbirds and Jays waited until dawn to get busy. We need an RV.
