Fasten your safety pins again, imagine a future to look forward to, help out whereever you can!

"Damn. I imagine you're confined to the Vardo this morning. Let me know if you need me to bring anything." I texted back, "Thanks Jude! Wet cloths in place filter running now, wow."

I woke with the sound of our iphone ringing, and the message from our friend. She's the same friend who has opened a place for us when we move from the Langley Fairgrounds Campground. For at least the near future, we'll wait until the wild fire smoke clears enough to exert energy to disassemble our attached kitchen, pack up our gear, hitch the truck to the wagon/vardo and head south for the Maxwelton Valley. 

This weekend two of our neighbors who have lived with us on the Fairgrounds Campground, packed, hitched up and were moved by another campground neighbor. From the window in our vardo I watched the activity of the first of these neighbors, the wild fire smoke was minimal then. With my mask in place acting on an internal urge I can best equate to sticking together -- pilina, in Hawaiian -- I asked Pete to stretch up, pull the beautiful sunflowers that had grown on our picnic table garden, and cut one of those lovely blooms. Into an empty maple syrup jar filled with water I stuck the sunflower into the bottle. "I'm going over to say good-bye to 'Red.'" I told Pete. 

For the many months that we were neighbors we had never spoken to the quiet woman with red hair down to her butt. I walked to her trailer where she and our other neighbor were preparing her for the move. "Hello," I called from a ways away. I held out the maple syrup jar with the blooming sunflower. "I'd like for you to have this," I said. 

'Red' looked up and said "Oh, I wanted to give everybody a plant... I'm such a loner though." 

"I'm Moki, and this is Pete." I said. She introduced herself, and I reached for the Chinese money plant she had for me. "Thank you!" I said. We talked for the first time. She told us where she was moving. I recognized the place as being very near where Pete and I had lived in the woods for more than five years. I thanked the neighbor who was helping disassemble the hookups from the trailer, he quietly said something, looking up but not stopping. 

The next day I looked from my same small vardo window to see the red truck and helpful neighbor hitching up another neighbor. This is a neighbor we have talked with. She and her band of three small dogs had become a sweet and comforting neighborly site each day. (After we talked to her about the small sausage like dog barking through her trailer window for hours while she was away. We reconciled the barking, and grew a neighborly respect over time). The barking of those dogs and the leaning gait of their little person became the sort of connection we can all bloom from ... if we allow for it. 

By this time, just a day later, even with my mask on, the short walk across the campground was difficult. I made two trips that day. 

It was the second trip to her old rig that was a successful meetup. I found a box of unopened camomile tea and a wooden star sent to us last Christmas. It reads, MERRY & BRIGHT. It seems just right for this neighbor. Using a strip of purple yoga mat I wrapped the tea into a bow, and attached the wooden star. I reached the trailer, and called to her. She stepped from her home and I offered her the tea. 

"It's my favorite kind of tea!" Great I thought, and great it felt to be handing a woman with three small dogs who sometimes fill her trailer home with barks that fill her nervous system with more noise than she can manage. We talked about where she was headed, there'll be challenges. She will be close to a highway. She asked, "Does that (she was pointing at our vardo) hitch up?" I told her it did, and does, and that we have lived in her for eleven years. A brief version of our traveller's story was shared, and we talked about the reality of our lives: doing what needs to be done, and doing it. 

She could relate to the expression 'Edge-dwellers," enjoying her trailer home and her dogs rather than the confines of a room in someone's house. As she was getting ready to drive off the campground Pete said to her, "Maybe we'll come see you at the dog park." We know where she and the dogs like to hangout. She liked the idea of a future meetup; something fun to look forward to. 

" Have you ever seen a movie; you think it’s complex and interesting but it would never happen in real life? I’m talking about a film that features diabolical, chance encounters, betrayal, outrageous grace,  paranoia, twists and turns, break-ups, and on top of that, everyone is gorgeous!...We’re living in that crazy movie, times ten... I’m sorry! But no one is going to be able to wrap their head around all that and tell you what it means.  Matter of fact it’s going to take many years to understand the impact of this period in history, on the individual as well as the collective. " - Elsa P.

 

What's the movie you're part of? Are you helping out where ever you can, even if it means you've gotta really stretch?  Safety pins are handy common magic that holds long enough to move when necessary. Hope you have some handy.