Writing

Me & My Shadows

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Laura

The last leaves are now just reflections of nearly forgotten memories, cast like shadows on the wall.

Nelson Mandela said “there is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.”  I think he is right.  I have not yet met the goals that I have set for myself and I know that once I attain these there will always be more.  There is always more to come, I think, even beyond death there is more.

I hope that I still have a lot of time to work my life plan out, but one never really knows.  It seems to me that my future life is set out like a dinner party to which I have have not been invited yet.  Still, I can’t help it!  I hope that Judy Chicago set the table for me!  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sit in on this dinner party with all the fantastic attendees?

But, I don’t know what this life has in store for me.  The future, my future, just like everyone else’s is somewhere just beyond my grasp.  My future exists only like the shadows of last years leaves which promise that there will be other springs; other falls.

I think about Aesop’s warning to “beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow”.   I could use some illumination, but in these short days when the sun casts so much shadow it is not always easy to find the light that will surely come again.  It is easier to focus on the unreachable shadows which are long, sleek, and mysterious.

Thankfully, I can do some shadow exploration tomorrow when I return to THO.  I can’t help it!  I wonder what is waiting there for me?  I know it will be my home, my land, my friends and family.  I know that there is a big party at home this weekend coming.  What else is waiting in tomorrow’s shadow?

Categories: Art, Erazim Kohák, Family, Forest, Open your eyes, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | Tags: | 2 Comments

Tiny House News

Posted on November 24, 2012 by Laura

I will be writing a weekly column for Tiny House Listings.  You can see the first of these here.

This post is dealing with my reasons for going with a 12v system and the steps I took to get this up and running.

Thank you to Steven at Tiny House Listings for the opportunity to write!

Happy reading and enjoy the weekend!

xo L

Categories: Off Grid, Sustainable living, Tiny House Ontario, Writing | 1 Comment

Life Moves

Posted on November 21, 2012 by Laura

Before I left Tiny House Ontario, I took a couple of photos inside the house.  It always surprises me how much changes there during the day.  Not just out in the forest as one would expect but inside of the house too there is always the flux of change.

My art gallery stays pretty much the same because I very rarely sell a piece of my own work.  Still I hang them on tiny nails so I don’t damage the wooden walls very much, so they wobble with the wind and are very rarely level.  Too, inside, with the switch and the light that I added this year, the wall looks different than it did earlier this summer when I put them up.  Outside the window, the gravel is waiting patiently and settling in.  The big change will come next year when the collected rocks are added and this becomes a flag stone patio.

The shelved wall is always fluid.  From the season that needs heat to the other seasons there is a huge change because all things that freeze are moved to Hamilton with me.  Also there are books that come too, because I can’t live the whole winter without them, namely: Erazim Kohák: The Embers and the Stars, Julia Cameron: The Artist’s Way and all of my own writing.  The other change is warmth and peace of mind in the form of the heater and the carbon monoxide/smoke detector.

There are always little changes too because I refer to the books, use the games, light the candles, burn the sage and so on.  Every tiny thing moves, because life moves and changes.  We too move and change, sometimes these are obvious glaring differences like a move to Australia, finishing a degree, finally finding job security, illness and death.

Most of the time, change is barely perceptible; like the changes I refer to here in the photos.  Only those who monitor change can see them clearly.  I am the sort of person who notices subtle changes and this is why I know that in my life there is a shift happening. I see this as clearly as I see that I did not put the bag of seeds and the candle away in the right spots on the shelves below.  I don’t know the impact of these changes, but I know that they are coming.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.” ~ Stephen King

Categories: Erazim Kohák, Off Grid, Open your eyes, Original Art work of Laura Moreland, Stuff, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | 4 Comments

NaNoWriMo and The Little Bad Wolf

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Laura

NaNoWriMo is going well.  I am, happily, ahead of schedule of the 1,667 word per day count.  This morning I knew I could not get right down to writing because Rudigrrr Wolf had to go the the vet to have his follow up blood test for Lyme disease.

When he was found, after being abandoned with two other little ones in the woods, the poor little fellow had ticks.  The first test came back negative but 6 months later the disease showed up in his screening.  My poor Bad Little Wolf was treated, but you have to wait 6 months until you do the next test to see if the blood comes back clean.  While he was there he also got his rabies booster shot and because he is so small these vaccines are quite hard on him.  He has been sleeping beside me all day.  Poor little Toot!

I will let you know, Monday or Tuesday when the test results come back if the THO’s Tiny Wolf is clear.

Isn’t he just too gosh darn cute?

Categories: Dog, Tiny House Ontario, Writing | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

November

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Laura

This year I am going to participate in NaNoWriMo.  This event will give me the opportunity to write a novel, albeit a rushed and disorganized one, in a month.  If you have every dreamed of writing a novel of your own, today is the day to begin this!  Quick, sign up before you change your mind!  Join your local group of aspiring writers!  Meet interesting people!  Let the writing begin!

I am sharing this with you here at THO not just so that you have an opportunity to join the “fun” but so that you have a heads up.  My posts are likely to be short but hopefully sweet this month.

Wish me luck!  xo L

Categories: Writing | Tags: , , | 3 Comments

Word:

Posted on October 20, 2012 by Laura

I had no idea that SO MANY writers do their work in Tiny Houses!  I find that writing at THO goes well, I suppose it is connected to the lack of distraction but I also think that there is a safe coziness that contributes to my ability to release what I want to say.

I have to say that I am most surprised by Virginia Woolf’s Tiny House.  How nice that she finally did get not just a room of her own but a whole Tiny House!

Do you recognize any of these or know of any more?  Each photo is labelled by the writer who used or uses it.

Categories: View, Writing | Tags: , | Leave a comment

Fall Writers

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Laura

Fall is clearly starting to settle in at THO.   I arrived there yesterday with my luggage, and left again immediately to go back to Kingston.  The weather is getting cold enough that I have kept the windows closed added an additional blanket to the bed and switched my thin linen pajamas for my flannel ones.  This said, I am not really at the tiny house heating it up with my own body temperature.  You see I am attending the Kingston Writer’s Fest.  I have seen Michael Ondaatje, Dionne Brand, Teju Cole, Andrew Westoll, Marina Nemat speak so far.

I had never heard of Teju Cole but I am happy that I now have.  He puts words together with absolute poetic and wondrous purpose.  Last night, I was so taken with the man’s presence and his writing that I purchased his book; I read about half of it before my eyes gave out after a long trip on the train, food, speakers, excitement and the chill at THO – it was a wonder I read at all.  His words are just so good.

This morning, when I woke, I drove back into town, on the way in I saw an immature turkey vulture on the power lines.  The creature allowed me to take a few photos before it lifted its wings with irritation and lifted off.

Now, I must get back to see the others who use words, speak about them.

This afternoon I will see other writers as well.

Categories: Forest, Kingston, Magical, Nature, Ontario, Readers, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | Leave a comment

The Disappearing House

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Laura

One thing is for sure, I am always writing about the forest at the THO blog.  Too, there are a lot of tree photos posted.  Still, when I take photos of THO, I always try to find the clearest image of the Tiny House and I post these.  Seeing this image which Colleen Murphy took, makes me realize that I have not done a very good job of explaining why the woods are so significant in my day to day life.

I think until you see this image, you might not have realized how totally integrated into these woods THO is.

Really, THO is just a tiny dot built into a tiny clearing.  Indeed, two weeks ago when I had the car, I picked up my neighbour and during the drive she told me there is a clearing because lightning struck there a few years ago.   Where this small fire cleared things is just where I built the house.  Lets hope lightning never strikes the same place twice.

There is only one more clearing in this forest.  It was created because there was a really massive maple there and she was dead, thus I had her cut so I could use the place that she had been holding for herself for hundreds of years.  This maple’s clearing is where my driveway ends, where stone is now dumped, and where both my solar panels and my garden sit.  I am thankful she made it and kept it so well.

The thing is, that if I did not have a driveway, then THO would just melt back into the forest.  She would disappear in the shadows.  And while the structure is strong and built to last, I am sure that without a driveway the forest would moss over THO and turn her into a hollow tree.

Without a driveway, I am convinced that THO would exist only virtually here in the readers dream.  She would simply be an electronic fairy tale.

Categories: Cloth Porch, Environmentalism, Erazim Kohák, Forest, Magical, Nature, Off Grid, Ontario, Open your eyes, Tiny House Ontario, View, Writing | Leave a comment

Back Home

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Laura

Another confession:

I frequently make up stupid songs based on people’s music and sing them to the poor unfortunate people who are with me.    GILLY GILLY OSSENFEFFER KATZENELLEN BOGEN BY THE SEA (Al Hoffman / Dick Manning) is my most recent victim… I posted the Beatles version of this some time ago and learned the tune and melody.  After I learn a song then I plagiarize, pilfer, twist them depending on what is going on.

Here is this morning’s THO version based on my being on my way back home soon….

There’s a Tiny House,

in the Tiny Woods

Where a Tiny Girl

Filled a Tiny Dream

Now the house sits still

waiting there for me

It is Tiny House Ontario

Chocolate shed in forest

loved by me-e-e-e-e…

OK… so now you know, I am not much of a song writer but if you know the tune, as I do, it is kind of funny.

No?

Well, my dogs think it is funny.  They told me so with their eyes.  They had to do it this way, because of course dogs hardly ever laugh out loud.  At least mine don’t.  Do yours?

Categories: Dogs, Music, Simple living, Tiny house, Tiny House Ontario, Writing | Leave a comment

Ubiquitous Assimilation

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Laura

What is ubiquitous assimilation?  This three minute clip from the 2011 film, Detachment sums up what it means really nicely.

I am pretty sure that no sensible person can argue about the fact that we live in a period of time where society suffers from ubiquitous assimilation in a way that is scarily similar to the Borg.

As a Tiny Houser, I would like to think that the Star Trek: Next Generation writers were wrong.  The Borg are science fiction characters, right?  Sadly, I don’t think the concept of them is really so far fetched.  I think that most people claim individualism but really, in this society, your distinctiveness is not assimilated into the group; Borgists of the world have their distinctiveness written over, disposed of, like an old floppy disk.

This Borgism applies heavily to the way that we live.  The marketing holocaust reaches into every area of our life right down to how we live.  Really, I would like to believe that we do not live in a world where everyone is not madly consuming stuff.  Taking way more than they need, building huge homes which they cannot afford, filling them with stuff that they also cannot afford… just because advertising, television, and social pressure are telling them that this will make them happy.  Assimilate, assimilate, assimilate… shop, shop, shop… CONSUME!

The crazy that is packed into this doublethink is lost on most people.  I can’t tell you how many people I have heard bragging about the fact that they LOVE to shop… Love to buy… Even LOVE to be capitalists!  Funny but these people never seem that happy.  The seem too busy, too rushed, with never enough time to sit for a coffee.  They don’t have time to enjoy any moments.  They explain that they “gotta get to work, gotta get to the mall… My life is too busy to stop” they say.

Ubiquitous assimilation/doublethink.

I encourage you to consider if any of this post applies to your own housing and/or your stuff collection situation.  Does this apply your life in any way at all?

I am not saying that you should all buy land, build a Tiny House and set up a farm.  This would be as absurdly Borgist (though not as wasteful or consumeristic) as the current big pile of crap in a big house.  When everyone does the same thing it is conformity.  a Tiny House may not fit your NEEDS.  I am not asking you all to mould yourself into something that does not fit you.

The current way of life for most of us in the (so called) developed world is not something that every person should want to do… still, they do it.  What I do ask is that you to consider is all that stuff really making you happy?  Or, is the way you live your life being constructed and ruled by marketing.  Are you living beyond your needs and if so, whom are you are making happy while complying with the ubiquitous assimilation to advertising and consumer culture?

It is obvious, that this constant assault of advertising has created huge social pressure because it has triggered in us the need to do better so that we can be measured by some artificially constructed corporate concept of success.  It is human nature (for most of us) to want to be accepted and looked up to, but are we doing this in a way that is truly giving us a better quality of life?  Are we happy?  Are you happy?

I ask you, have you been Borged or are you still an individual?

Too, if you have just now come to understand that you have been Borged, are you already so much a part of the corporate collective that you can no longer escape it and find your individual route?

Categories: Environmentalism, Family, Open your eyes, Simple living, Stuff, Sustainable living, Writing | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Adventure Journal by Contexture International.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 671 other followers