Lake District, UK ... a bit of soul-filling dunnage
My dear man Pete is a good one for using and often, making up uncommon words. Not long ago sometime between loading up the truck Bernadette for our trek to Bend, Oregon and arriving here in Everett, Wa ... I heard Pete use the word 'dunnage'. I'd head him use the word once before when a huddle of men were working to get our wheelie house out from her building place of origin. The vardo was holding fast her place of origin, the ground was soft, the rain's abundant. All manner of equipment was being used to inch VardoForTwo around the house and up the driveway onto the street. It was dunnage and perseverance that coupled and made that first move possible.
What is dunnage?
Instead of a photo (of which I have none) .... imagine two blocks of wood stacked one on the other. Like the letter "T" except flip the "T" upside down, and add a thin slab across the top, making it almost an "I" .That is what the dunnage looks like shoring up the four corners of our wee wheeled house.
Wiki defines dunnage as: a term for off-cut or spare pieces of scrap wood. "Dunnage" is a common word throughout many trades in New Zealand, Australia, The Americas, and Britain such as welding, carpentry, building construction, etc. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnage
This is precisely what Pete uses to shore up the changeable nature of our land ark home, VardoForTwo. Situated as we are now on the graveled flat overlooking the Everett boat harbor, the vardo is subject to the gusts of winds common to the area. Scraps of a stout hunk of wood and a smaller chunk of wood are the dunnage Pete is using to balance off the four corners creating a temporary and satisfactory sense of stability. A bit of a shame that once again my old laptop cannot allow me downloading of photos ... Still the look is something like a fairy's version of four pilings stacked under the framework of the trailer. The wind moves the whole home much like a ship would rock.
We celebrated our Thanksgiving dinner inside our land ark of a home last night. Enjoying the turkey dinner and watch an old favorite movie on a tiny tv that once belonged to our friend Sigrid. The movie, "Miss Potter" the tale of Beatrix Potter creator of tales about creatures dressed in Victorian ware and benefactress of thousands of Lake District country side preserved for future generations. Like dunnage, the simple distraction and inspiration from a writer of tales shores up our lives. The tv and dvd player are both gifts passed to us from benefactresses who reside on the other shore. The connection does not elude me, we benefit from these things are acknowledge them. Yes, like dunnage.
From time to time other forms of dunnage make their way to our lives and onto our blog through links to our side-bar = over there to the right. In the recent while I have added these links of dunnage as they do shore me up with inspiration and sometimes stir my blood more than a little.
Kauai Eclectic
Joan Conrow's Kauai Eclectic has long been a favorite read for Pete. Conrow is a Kauai-island journalist and author of a blog of musings and tellings about the real-life of an island occupied. Her writing is both personal and infused with the in-depth investigative reporting that is her journalist history. This is one of the links of dunnage that stirs the blood more than a little; we read it because it connects us with what is going on back home. Gypsy-like though our life may be there is a connection to 'aina that remains constant.
Real Change News
Here's another of the dunnage that connects me to the reality of The Planet. Homelessness. We have been on the road, been the invisible and know how likely it is we or any one can be without a place to be sheltered, safe and comforted. What Real Change News does here in the Pacific Northwest is far from charitable work in my opinion. Over the years that Pete and I have been in the Pacific Northwest I have come to appreciate the worthiness of the activism and support the vendors who sell this hard-hitting view of homelessness in the weekly 'FREE' paper. Each vendor purchases his/her stash of papers and works a specific corner-store front-location selling the paper.
The Gypsy's Travel Journal
Our friend JT offered this blog site as a place to explore and I do find inspiration and dunnage for my spirit here. Blog author Gypsy Woman melds visual with words ... some words she borrows and other times the words are her own. The visuals are fascinating ones near always, and the quotations stirring in a myriad of ways. I like her invitation found on her sidebar. A snip of it reads:
we are all gypsies of a sort, are we not, wandering through this life, through past lives and into our next lives, wandering, wondering, experiencing, loving, feeling, thinking, imagining ...
The sun is paying us a short visit. I turn my face into the sunshine and soak up the light into my eyes ... hoping to store it up like dunnage for the days when light is scant. Pete is setting up the corners for our Porch Pods to come. The ECO-nomy of Wee grows and we are glad we know to appreciate every inch of it.
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