Don't ever leave me.
My boy, Mark and our dear Jamie came up with a new grand baby for us . His name is Cypress Benjamin Edwards. He was born February 23 with a head of hair and a sweet disposition.Home birth an hour and a half labor. That Jamie is something else!
Grand daughter, 4 yr. old Amirra is already taking the "big sister" job very seriously. Deborah went down to help keep Amirra occupied while Jamie attended the little one. Mark arranged a nice private cottage on the Snoqualmie River for Deb to escape to after the long days with the 4 year old human dynamo. Although many of those evenings were "sleepovers" with Yaya (Amirra's name for Deb)
3 weeks after the birth, I finally got away for a short visit. I waited for the kafuffel to die down and headed south. Amirra and I spent a couple of days putting a 10 gallon fish tank together. Baby Cypress was a quiet addition to the evenings when we would come together for dinner and card games in their little cottage. Jamie says Cy is awake a lot of the night. He's a night feeder.
Daughter, Josie, ... "Auntie Jojo," pours herself into the kids. Amirra loves her.
Mark has transformed my old studio space into a sweet cottage for his growing family. In trade for a break in rent, he manages the home we used to live in for us. Our tenants are connected to the Wilderness Awareness school. (see Nov 22 / 2011 for more info if you like)
It is a very transformative experience to revisit the home I raised my family in. We moved onto scraped dirt and a brand new 1984 Double wide shortly after the implosion of the Love Family Community that we had been a part of for more than 15 years. We planted trees , gardens, built a pond, a wood shed, and I was familiar with every tree and shrub. Now to visit, and see another vision emerging on the land has been, as l say,"transformative". Mark is much more of a visionary . l do very well with about 4 square feet at a time . Crawling around planting little things, rolling rocks into place......He sees a bigger picture, a gift l have always admired. The whole back yard is now a fenced in chicken and duck pen. They (Mark & tenants) are building a shop and a new wood shed. There were (and I'm afraid always will be ) problems with the double wide. Most recently this involved removing and rebuilding the corner with the "master bath" . Seems this is a "no worries" situation with all involved as the kilowatt eating heaters dry away the mold and mildew to the point where re-insulating, venting and plumbing the bath and toilet back in finally become a reality. Mark employed some tenant labor in trade for rent and Bob's almost my uncle.
We have decided that in spite of the obvious fact that the place is slowly being replaced board by board as it ages, we will do our best to prop it up and carry on. Mark is close to all the people who come to live on the property. He seems able to spend enough time entertaining and being entertained, that great friendships are emerging. Amirra is a rock star when she shows up, which is almost daily, and is involved in art and stories and warm human connection with this wonderful collection of people. Was it "Julio" l just met? He was sitting at his laptop as l emptied out the fish tank for Amirra's project.... a very pleasant Spanish lad ...and I got to talk about my hippy days in Ibiza. I see a very hopeful vision emerging as this micro community evolves, based on nothing other than a pure form of friendship ....Friends helping with what needs to be done.
As I view the events in the world around me, wars, economic collapse, environmental disasters, greed run amok, I become more and more hopeful, that whatever fumbling attempts we can make to live in peace with those around us just might save our sorry ass.
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