The Dude, Lane 31 and a Crane for the Fir Tree

  If you're in the city, sit down somewhere really quiet, listen to your breath and imagine a full moon dropping silver dust across the grass, spotlighting the potholes in the gravel lane and freeze framing the steeley rippling ocean as if you've been dropped into an Edward Hopper painting.

That's what it's like driving along Walker's Hook Road where I live. The narrow, windy asphalt creeps and winds just above the water's edge on the North End of the island. I must keep my eyes on the road to avoid the ditch even though I have taken lately to driving smack down the middle of the yellow line. A car is rather a rare sight in the evening.

With one hand on the steering wheel, I crane my neck to catch a glimpse of the moon and the purple and pink haze of streaky quotation marks around the otherworldly translucent orb. It's my happiest moment of the day. It brings me back to the luck and beauty of  being alive.
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Salt Spring Island is a quiet place in the winter. Maybe that's true of every small place. What to do? Read more.Local authors. Brian Brett's Trauma Farm is ready to be cracked open. I just devoured George Sipos's Geography of Arrival. Movies. More movies.  I catch up on watching movies that most other "normal" North Americans have already seen because, let's face it, I'm a bit of a pop culture alien. Understatement.

Last night I watched The Big Lebowski by the Coen Brothers. How could I not have seen this movie? The Dude characterization gave me all sorts of ideas. I"m surrounded by The Dude in various incarnations and as worthy on a daily basis in my job. Maybe I should invite the Coen brothers up for a visit on a little "recky" mission.

As for tonight it's a bloody  miracle I'm not on my knees out in the back yard howling at the moon in frustration related to problems with the creation of a new website for myself. It's never simple. Even when it should be. Especially when an insurmountable problem arises and you turn into an obsessive-compulsive, wimpering, temper-tantruming desperate piece of quivering and totally-stumped brain matter attached to a set of 10 fingers tapping madly at the keyboard all to no avail.

Maybe a dip in the pool and a little weekly Deep Water Aquafit will relieve my angst. Being January, the class is packed with women and one guy who merely, by his presence, I admire immensely. He's cute and he's  a film maker and of course he plays in a band. We discuss it in the hot tub. They're called Lane 31. I'm not crazy about that name. It's the Lane islanders must get into when they return from Victoria and line up for the Fulford Ferry. So?

I'm listening to their MySpace downloads and wow, my first impression wasn't fair. I have listened to this song, Shari's song, about 25 times while I'm writing this. Love it. Love the lyrics. Love the guy's voice.

The evening gets capped off with a long call from Pauline to report in on the latest Monty Python skit of how not to build a cottage.

Turns out that a huge fir tree smack dab up against the new little cottage must come down.

"What?" "You never noticed this before?" I ask stupidly before I think, "Shut up Gayle."

 "It will require a crane," they say. Call your insurance provider they tell her. Check your coverage. Does it cover Acts of God? Freaks of Nature?
Never seen anything like it, they say.
"I couldn't sleep last night," she said. I kept seeing two people -  city slickers -  sleeping peacefully in the new B&B crushed to death by the tree. I imagined hearing the crack and waking up just in time to see the towering inferno of branches devouring the roof.
I'd lose everything. They'd die. Their relatives would sue. Gone. All gone. (Blessing in disguise I think to myself but wisely refrain from saying.)
"It's a miracle that thing hasn't dropped before," said the arborist.
"Is he really an arborist?" I ask. "Like, a real arborist?"
"He has 30 years," she says. "With trees though?" I ask again.

I only ask because everybody here, on this crazy little island, is something whether they are or not if you know what I mean. It's a bit like Hollywood in that way, I imagine. I should ask to see my doctor's degrees just in case.

"Call me when they're ready to hoist it outta there," I say to her about the Giant Evergreen.
"Doesn't matter where I am or what time of day. I want to see this."

But for now, enough already. I lay me down to rest.

Owner-less for Life

I took this photo in a Victoria tea shop last February. A bike. Just one example of a highly shareable items that fit well into the trend of Owner-less-ness.

When I lived in Vancouver, I loved belonging to the Cooperative Auto Network. I loved being able to get online and just pick a car to use when I needed to use one.  Gee. Let's see. Did I want to drive a truck? Maybe I'll opt for the yellow Volkswagon bug. I was beginning to get pretty partial to the Pontiac Vibe station wagon. The Mazda Protege had the best visibility even if it was extremely boring.

It would have even been better if the Car Co-op started purchasing really high end cars so instead of just driving regular cars you could opt for the Jag or the BMW or the Mercedez Benz. Of course, the fees would have gone way up.

The best part about the experience is that when I'd finished my trip and use of the car, I loved being able to lock the keys up, and walk away, knowing I had absolutely no responsibility for the stupid metal hunk of machinery if someone happened to sideswipe it, steal it or it went up in flames. It wasn't mine. I didn't OWN it. I didn't have to repair it. I didn't have to think about it at all except for when I was driving it.

Lately, on Salt Spring, I've been noticing a trend. It might be a trend. Maybe it's just desperation masquerading as a trend. It could be both.  I've noticed that more and more people are building structures on land that they don't own. I have trouble getting my head around this. You're going to make yourself a beautiful little space without any control over a landlord's decision to let you keep it on their property? What? Are you crazy? Why put money and effort into building a structure on a piece of land that you don't own? You might have to just leave it if something changes. It's like a floathome on land. I don't get it. Nano homes. Yurt-like structures. Call them what you will. Get a trailer. Buy a caravan. Build a tree house. Use a tent. Not my idea of ideal.

But, maybe I'm just being extremely unimaginative. Perhaps these people are actually pioneers. Maybe they're buddhist-like explorers recognizing that every moment of our lives is about letting go. They have excelled at non attachment. They're able  to risk the possibility for creating a pad of their own - for as long as possible - and accepting the inevitability of change.

Maybe they've got something there. I mean, if you know you'll never be able to own, why not borrow? Respectfully of course.

You can use your imagination and think about all the possibilities here for owner-less sharing. People with huge yachts that just sit tied up could share them. Massive million dollar homes that get used a couple of times a year could be shared. Restaurants, especially on Salt Spring in January, could be rented out for events targetted at attracting those to the island for whatever type of gathering. High end camera equipment. Art Studios. Workshops. Bikes. Motorbikes. Horses. Expensive art.

The potential for the sharing of irregularly used, high end items makes a lot of financial and environmental sense.

Just two days ago I picked up a hitch hiker on my way to work in the snow and he got a call while in my car. It was someone talking to him about his sailboat.

"You own a sail boat?" I asked. "Well, I own a shared sail boat," he answered, "except I'm the only one who seems to pay attention to it and use it."

Okay, so there may be some drawbacks to the sharing depending on who you're sharing it with and the arrangement.

But, it all ties into a trend as pinpointed  on Trendwatching.com referred to as Owner-less. 

Access, Baby! Isn't that where it's always been at in the end?

Not Just Any Yak

My friend Gwen gave me a Yak for Christmas. Not a real one of course, but one made by Lungtok. That's what the tag around its neck says. Lungtok even has an e-mail address.

This story began five years ago when a Japanese artist named Tomoyo Ihaya, who lives in Vancouver, first visited India for a couple of weeks of meditation and trekking in Ladakh in the northwest part of the Himalayan Mountains. She fell in love with "its bare beauty of nature, ancient culture and people who live a simple life."

Tomoyo described it as a life-changing experience.

In 2006 while participating in an artist project with other international artists, Tomoyo met some young Tibetans who were selling momos (Tibetan dumplings). She bought them and became friends with one of the sellers.

One day while eating at a small restaurant run by a Tibetan refugee, she noticed a couple of Tibetan boys who seemed to have a talent for drawing. She brought some watercolours and paper but had the idea to teach them how to make three-dimensional figures with needle and fleece or needle felting. She says she only showed them for a few minutes.

The next day when she returned she found they had made a horse and a yak. She says she was really moved to see how alive and honest the fleece animals looked.

She began to think that it could be a good way for these refugees to make a living while allowing them to connect with their cultural heritage and to keep on connecting their hearts to where they feel they belong: high blue sky, rivers, mountains, and green grassy fields filled with those animals.

Since she has returned to Canada she has sold three bunches of these animals and returned the profit to them.

Her dream is to establish a non profit organization in India so she can do more creative activities for the Tibetan refugee community there.

She named her project the Himalaya Sky Project and has been baking cookies and selling them as a small step toward registering a non profit organization in India to help support the art and culture of the Tibetan refugee community in India and in the Himalayas.

When I was in Vancouver, it was sheer coincidence that Gwen and I saw Tomoyo briefly on January 2nd at the kitchen store on Granville Island where she works part time in between her travels.

You can learn more about Tomoyo from a 2008 article in  The Georgia Straight. (scroll down when you get to the article).