Some celebrations are revolutionary

The sunflowers and we have landed at Camp Bamboo in time to celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary. Thanks to our dear friend, Peggy, who was there to be part of the original 9/11/2004 gathering on Hawaii Island we remember the date. Life gets busy, and sometimes those celebrations which are revolutionary, slide by. 

It has been a hot and smoky day here, and in most of the western lands of the U.S. continent. We were outside just before sunset sorting through the chattel of our vardo for two life. The smoke slowed Pete, a little, but mostly he has been outside all day. There were steps to reassemble and they never go together exactly the same way; the land we arrive on is never the same, so how those four steps line up is different every time. 

Balancing the wagon on two wheels and a hitch is also a 'piece of work.' (That's Pete's quote from earlier today). Very early on in our traveller's life I learned the word "dunnage."

"Dunnage is inexpensive or waste material used to load and secure cargo during transportation; more loosely, it refers to miscellaneous baggage, brought along during travel. The term can also refer to low-priority cargo used to fill out transport capacity which would otherwise ship underweight." Wikipedia

That's Wikipedia's definition, but I learned the word from sister traveller and artist, Rima Staines, who was also living in a hand-built, converted truck-home on wheels in the U.K. at the same time Pete and I began our Vardo for Two life. It was Rima who made me aware of the words 'dunnage' and 'chattel.' To travellers, roamers, folks who live in alternative forms of homes on wheels, those words are practices -- everyday magic and necessary bits and pieces of a mobile life.

We have had our first dinner at Camp Bamboo. The convertible safety pin life we live moves and refastens, not without real work and effort. But that may be the most important part of our lessons of being together. Real. Work. Effort. 

We sat to enjoy a dinner of onions and peas and garlic sauteed with lemon and rosemary with a nice fillet of salmon to celebrate another meal together. Tomorrow is our anniversary. There may be heavier smoke coming tomorrow, and staying inside may be the wise thing to do. We celebrate the now, and the internet that is working, now.

Common magic is the kind you live with eyes wide open and hearts willing to embrace joy in the moment. Revolutionary!

 

Mahalo nui to our friend Jude and the land which includes our Camp Bamboo. xoxo Moki and Pete