Trailer Park Karma

I Gave Notice Today

It's a big deal.

Working out here -- the work I do, that is -- has become almost impossible. And while I can hear the wheels turning in my landlord's mind ("Why can't she just get a job in town doing something like office work or waiting tables?"), there's a truth that I've arrived at during my struggles here in The Sticks:
What I do is more important than where I do it.

That's an important conclusion for me.

Ya see, the meaning of Trailer Park Karma, the phrase and the blog, is different from what most readers seem to have arrived at. It's not about RV'ing, though I now have tons of tweet-followers who thought maybe... I even have a little sub-niche of ex-pat retirees who figure I'm "on their side" -- but given I'll never retire and really don't even understand the word, it ain't about that either. It's not even about low-rent living, although sure, a lot of my posts lean that way. But having little money and just generally "doing without" is only a by-product of trailer park karma, albeit thickly entwined and certainly codependent, in my mind.

I can't succinctly sum up the meaning of trailer park karma, even though I feel it deeply and have no doubts about its presence and influence. It's kind of like music: When you label and pigeonhole it in an effort to simplify it, you suck a lot of the beauty right out of it, and it's no longer what it was to begin with. And you no longer see it. 

That's what Buddhism is  about: Seeing. Really. Seeing.

It's a lot harder to really see when one’s life is overfilled with sensory input on a constant basis. Back in Swamp City, well, if you live there or in any other metropolis, you probably know what I'm going to say. While I had absolutely no intentions or forethought about what living in The Sticks would do for my practice, the result has been nothing short of glorious. 


But that same glory-birthing circumstance -- the lessening of Stuff To Hear/See/Feel/Think About/Do -- has now led me to the end of this particular sojourn.

When you whittle away at your life's pieces, down to particles, and then wipe the atoms away with a final flourish, you've got this: Survival of the compound you know as yourself. And in this world, if you can't make your own food and shelter, you buy it. To do that, you gotta have money. And most of us earn it.

Earning money has become increasingly challenging in The Sticks. It is, after all, the reason places like this exist in the first place. Not many folks can earn a living in a place that (a) has very few, if any, places of business, and (b) is tenuously connected to those places that do have business. The owner of this property told me flat out, "It's so cheap because we can't get anyone to move out here." That fact appealed to me on many levels. Still does. One of the levels, the one where I have to earn a living, has become clogged up.

Back when broadband was new and I grabbed it up early, I remember telling friends that working on the Internet could often be a little like working in a burning building. The frequent breakdowns of the early system (I think I had three distinct entities involved in providing me Internet at that point) gave me ample "opportunities" to leave what I was doing and run over here and dash that blaze out, only to find that another had erupted over there... Now, of course, it's smooth sailing. But not here in The Sticks. 
Not even close. 

Remember dial-up?That's what nearly everyone out here still has -- and I knew that going in -- but it means that there's not a bunch of unhappy customers out this way. There's me with my aircard that delivers Just a Smidge Faster Than Dial-Up speed.

So I learned Rural Multitasking. That's where you :::click::: and then wander across the kitchen floor to wash dishes. A minute or so later, wander back :::click::: and then go feed the cat before wandering back to the kitchen... etc. It makes for a less sedentary life, I'll tell you that!But it can really raise your blood pressure, too, when the clicking you're doing is with the goal of making employers happy. And lately, after a fence builder's mishap on a ranch cut a main fiber-optic line... My attempts at working have looked more like showing up for work and wondering if you’re gonna find the building locked. 

So. Uncle. As much as the surroundings here make my spirit soar, and as much as Swamp City's don't... I gotta go back. I have to be able to get in the building, so to speak, and get my work done.
After all, I write to eat. And eating's not optional.

Besides, I miss The Boy. A lot. The downturn in income has made it more and more difficult to make the drive as often as I did when I first moved this way. Monthly isn't enough.

I'm going back to Swamp City, where I'll live almost smack dab in the middle of four million people, and walk Burb Dawg on concrete sidewalks and scoop up his poop, and listen to the sounds, smell the smells, bear the heat and humidity... and revel in it all. And tell y'all about it, too. More promptly!

From The What Was I Thinking Department: Learning To Love Instead Of Falling Into It

No, this isn't about The Editor and me. 

This is more about one of my other infatuation receptacles: My place in The Sticks.

If you've been following along, you've seen how over the past year I've rumbled through the various stages of my relationship with The Sticks. I've fallen in love with a few of the many places I've lived in the past, but never so hard as for here. Early on I was convinced that this is where I would be until my body's End Times. Love, love, flowery love... Then, of course, little things started popping up like zits on a lover's nose. But just as easily (and sometimes as fun) as squeezing the bad stuff out of blemishes, I'd get over it.  

Then came the biggies. The things I couldn't get over. Or under or around, even. What's left? Through... ah, yes. Going Through something with Your Love. Blech. But... that's Love, right?

Yes. Really. 

I learned to love the wind.

See, it's easy to love stuff that, well, you already love. You meet someone, you find a place, you get a job -- and you LOVE the things that you already loved, even before falling for this One.
Any fool can do that.

Then there are those things that you never knew before, the traits of Your Love that are shiny and new to your life. Much of the time, those are the little widgets that really grab our attention. Oooooh, it's SO [fill in the blank]! I just LOVE that about [Your Love Here].

But how about those nasty little murkies that at first aren't revealed, tidily tucked into crevices until, finally, life's interactions expose them? Your eyes widen, or maybe they narrow, and you glare, or stare, or blink, or cry. Not That! Of all things, not THAT! That Thing You've Always Hated! Or maybe not hated so much as really been annoyed by.

Like the wind.

In Swamp City, the wind is annoying. More than that even. Or it is to me, anyway. There seem to be two speeds: High and Off. In the Off position, you slog through the air, your body pushing against the water molecules that surround you. If you like saunas while fully clothed, it's The Place For You. And there's really no such thing as a breeze in Swamp City -- that's just faster moving water vapor, so it sweats you up a little faster. Occasionally, though, the wind slips into high speed. That's when you're walking around the side of a building and suddenly your hair is up ended, your skirt goes flyin’, and your lips start flappin’. Whole lotta that downtown, but high-speed wind does its share of careening around houses, too. 

Not a fan of Swamp City wind. Do not like it.

Out here, where there really is such a thing as a cool breeze and where my laundry can often dry on the line in 15 minutes, The Wind is like a distinct, living entity that you must be acquainted with in order to live here. It's full of changes and it has varied characteristics, so it's never boring. Kinda like a new neighbor or friend.

For instance: its howl. See, the wind here is nearly unstopped. You can almost tell sometimes that it's come from some other place, like one of the other big cities (no WAY could it be coming from Swamp City; the water would weigh it down) in the east or the northwest, where it's been pent up and trying to move amid obstacles. By the time it's out here with nothing to stand in its way, the Wind lets loose a howl of relieved glee.

The only time I've heard the wind howl like that in Swamp City was during Hurricane Ike. That wasn't gleeful in the least.

In The Sticks, it makes me laugh. The wind here has actually squeezed an "oooh!" from me when its whistling was especially melodic. Some days my new friend is damned impressive. There's not a thing wimpy about its 30mph gusts. Sure, Swamp City gets gusty, but there, it feels like you're being blown to your knees. Here, The Wind moves along the ground; it seems like your body will be lifted by the armpits and scooped into the air, just like when you were a kid.

At first, I was a bit taken aback by The Wind out here. I complained about its omnipresence. Full-forced, noisy, and always around. Some days it got in the way of tasks and disrupted my life. But I respected it. It got my attention. And while I may have grumbled at first, like during the third night in a row of what seemed like a nonstop assault of rattling rafters and dust dunes looming in my house, eventually I noticed something funny: I smiled about The Wind. My whines became tinged with at least one upturned side of my lips, until finally, I found myself standing in my open back door, meditating as The Wind billowed and buffeted around me. Not to get all Hippie Dippy on ya, but I imagined my own molecules being scattered and carried to wherever The Wind wanted.

This morning isn't particularly windy, but nearly every dawn here is followed by a playful breeze like today's. As I ran around the house, trying to accomplish at least one of the several in-progress tasks that seem never-ending, what with what passes for Internet out in The Sticks and the sundry appliances and amenities that are breaking down in the house now, I heard the wind whistle. And I smiled.

I realized that I'd learned to love The Wind.

And that's another reason why I came here to The Sticks in the first place.

How Much Practice Do I Want: London's Losing Its Charm

I know. I can't believe it either, and I never thought I'd say such a thing. But then, I never thought I'd live in London.

And ya know, it's been coming for several months. It's no surprise to me, even though you may be caught off-guard by my pronouncement. Disillusionment in a love relationship is probably most often a slow dissolving of gauzy haze, not an abrupt casting off of the veil. 

First, there was the increasing feeling of being a watched specimen. I expected it, sure, especially in the earliest months. But when I started friendly'n up to the Happy Hour crowd once a week, the air around my sanctuary in The Sticks started becoming a little stinky. (And that's metaphor. It actually smells great out here constantly, one of the things I'll miss when I'm... anyway...)

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the ins and outs of who hates who and why and how many generations back it goes. As soon as you start hearing all that, you eventually hear some detail that makes you think "Oops! I do that..." This part of the disillusion wasn't too tough to bear. I rolled with it, knowing it was part of living in a place this small and old.

And I didn't entirely mind the phone calls to check in on me when folks didn't see me when they expected to. I thought it was sweet. And that neighborly vigilance came in real handy when the neighbor's and part of my acreage was on fire while I was in Swamp City.

Plus I was kinda surprised that I didn't get begged invited to go to church across the road more often. I think the Methodists ha ve been extremely considerate of my sleeping in on Sundays, though I still do stick to the other side of the house, away from the front windows, from 9 to 10 AM.

But a few weeks ago, I was privy to a Happy Hour conversation that I'd rather not have been. It was damned uncomfortable at the time, but I didn't realize just how much it'd gotten under my skin until a couple of weeks later. I've actually skipped out on Happy Hour just to keep plowing through my recent piles of menial labor. But my absence was also partly because I'm a little wigged out.

At that last tea and beer-soaked gathering I'd attended, conversation centered on what is apparently a Resident Evil out this way: Renters.

I know people have a right to sit around and gripe when they're drinking with their friends. I don't begrudge them that opportunity to vent. But me being a Renter and all, well, I felt a little like the proverbial red-headed stepchild.

I didn't utter a word. And every single person at that table knows not only that I'm renting, but at least some of them (and possibly all) know that I've paid rent late a few times in recent months. Oh, I make up for it by reimbursing them the $15 per day late fees, but still... when you hear statements like, "Well, hell, the way the law is, they [we Renters] have the advantage," uttered after a story is told of one idea to get bad renters to leave: You pull the toilet out of the house...

It's Us versus Them out here. Not just regarding Renters & Owners, but nearly every other way you can categorize folks. Sure, it's like that everywhere, but in a microcosm like this, the smell of hate and fear gets really bad, really fast, and there's nowhere to escape it.

SO, you might be saying, why worry about a handful of people with nasty attitudes? Because that's all there is here. The Owners With Nasty Attitudes and the Renters (who I imagine have their own brand of attitude to boot). I'm surrounded. And alone. At least at happy hour, since I’m the only Renter there.

Add to the increasing stench the fact that gasoline's been $4 a gallon out here for a few months, making treks to see The Boy and The Editor and the rest of my loved ones in Swamp City downright unaffordable, and I essentially have more practice opportunities than I care for.

Then, they started ripping up Whiskey Road a few weeks back. But that's another whiney blogpost...

Where I Wax Rhapsodic Again About A Non-Sentient Being: Ode to My Crockpot

I'm not going to get all metaphysical or even metaphorical on ya in this one. I'm just layin' it on the line: I feel indebted to my crockpot. And damned near teary-eyed about it.

There are a few of you who understand, I know. You feel a deep love for some of your belongings, too. And in spite of all my Buddhist talk about the 2nd and 3rd Noble Truths, the reality is that I heart my kitchen stuff. Some of it, I cling to with a flourish of unashamed abandon.

That's my crockpot --> 

Now, there's no sentimental value in this beautiful, cornflower blue, massive piece of crockware. In fact, I don't even recall where I got this one. It's not my first, by any stretch, and it's no different from the others, really. If I still had any of the others, I might feel similarly smitten with them. 

But this is the one I have right now; therefore, I am in love with it.

Dear Crockpot: To utter "thank you" in your direction is nearly an insult. Rather, I want you to know that your participation in my life has, well, prolonged my existence. You've kept me fed on something other than peanut butter and tuna fish sandwiches for weeks, even as the propane eeking from the big white tank to my stove dwindles into wimpy little flames beneath my coffee pot. 

Before you rescued me, you saved my child's life on numerous occasions. Had it not been for you, having dinner ready, magically, after my long day of running amok in Swamp City with The World's Most Field-Tripped Boy, well... I pull up short at writing what might have happened.

Oh, Crockpot, so many would devalue you and your food magic. They simply don't understand, or maybe they've only experienced crock-potted meals from unloved pots. I don't know. But there's a hearty few of us out there who get it. We know and appreciate your duty-cum-art. We love your art. We are your fondest admirers. And you never let us down. (Unless we forget to plug you in or turn you on, which isn't your fault.)

Sure, you have nicks and scratches, and you've even done without your busted plastic lid for a solid year or more -- go, you! -- providing meals for me and mine even without all your supposedly necessary accoutrements! Even with nothing more than cheap tinfoil covering you, you fulfill my dinner dreams with panache. You and your fitted heating element are a team. I don't know if the two of you set out intentionally to win my heart, but here it is, on a platter of slow-cooked gratitude, just for you.

Love, 
Trailerpark B.

(PS - Let's all pray now to the Kitchen Deities that I won't be writing an ode to my Camp Stove in the near future...)