When we began building the wheelie home called Vardo For Two a.k.a. Kolea Nani we had come to the end of our collective rope. Pete and I have learned the wide range of options or lack of options that come from living with multiple sensitivities to chemicals, fragrances and toxic attitude. All the seriousness of fleeing one more toxic pesticide and herbicide poisoning took us to the road, living in the Scout Subaru and camping in driveways, front lawns and beach parking lots. Living sick and tired from the Subaru we learned a lot about where and how the community of mortals without walled domicile (houses) are treated and viewed: it is not a kind world when you live without domicile or espouse having "sensitivities" to the smell of new clothes, new buildings, paint, roofing material, 'BOUNCE' and the family of fragrances...
So, the journey of living from the streets led us off our beloved Hawaii island home. We miss the everything about that place, yet we know the reality of chemical use and the goofy (not funny ha,ha, sort) choices that keep making that Island Nation a place we cannot be.
We found a place to build a dream, we called that place The Kitchenette and if you haven't been here long, you might like going to the 2008 archives to read the life from that small space. We built a dream called VardoForTwo and took everything we had learned about researching and testing safe-for-us materials and methods to built a single room mobile bedroom that would require attachment to electricity. A solar operational life would have been great ... and yet, at this time, we will need to remain hooked to the grid. It took us from July 08 to March 09 build a useable home.
Since then, we have been living with our friends S & M on their land near the Olympic Mountains in Washington state. Their walled domicile and their willing hearts have been our co-housing first step dream. We admitted we were powerless to do this life alone, we turned the solution over to Ke Akua ... and these friends have welcomed our morphing and difficult to understand livestyle.
Life on the Ledge in the Woods is an evolving proposition. The space we perch upon would fit in a double car garage in most suburban American plots of real estate. Our set-up and live facilities are simple and depend upon the grace of Nature and her outdoor whirl and to some who watch, the choices we make bring harsh criticism and phrases like "trailer trash." I have taken time to digest the comments that I read on The Tiny House Blog relating to our VardoForTwo lifestyle. I was defensive, hurt, angry and needed time to get this article to speak a truth that sounds like me. Pete's out doing some of his Pete things, so I write for me, and hope it speaks for him.
The link to that article written without our permission is on the blog, and includes comments we have never seen or read here on VFT. I hesitated linking our finished home VardoForTwo on the Tiny House Blog because I knew the tiny house movement is a version of a mobile life for people who live with MCS or EI. What fuels the tiny house movement may or may not be a subset to what fuels life for 'Canaries' with environmental illness. Clearly though, the reasons and the daily reality of a Canary in a Tiny Home are multiply complex and like living on the streets ... the judgements are harsh and insensitive ... because, to be honest you can't know until you have been there.
Our decision to build the VardoForTwo as a bedroom wired only for electrical heat and an air filter to keep the air freed from toxics and toxins means we depend on the 'mother ship' and a walled domicle to live in tandem. Our outside shelter is neither "Appalachia of the '30's" if that was meant to be a put-down, nor trashy. We live gently on the Ledge and make music with the critters, and trees for entertainment.
I hope our readers will go over to the Tiny House Blog and read that article and the comments. That article drew views of the VardoForTwo that we needed (i guess) to be conscious of. It reflects opinions. What it lacks is the perspective of those who live with the affects of a society that wants to look good at the cost of Earth's good. We're two old dears who are working at living with life as it has become. We don't have it all together ... we have it in small bits, and clean up as we go. We have a legacy to pass along and by the gods (who are always watching) we pray that this blog will serve as a great body of work.
Photo credit
YMC
