City Folk

Kim and I have been out on the land full time since last week Wednesday and have been going through some cultural shock.  We've had culture shock before during the different times that we studied abroad and also when we lived in Japan.  It was always a process of acclimating our American ways with whatever host country we were living in.  The transition to a new place was always somewhat painful, but it always passed and we always got something valuable from our time in that place.

This time we are acclimating our city dwelling ways with our new life as country folk living completely off the grid.  It has not been easy.  The first couple of mornings I woke with one massive question pounding on my head, "What the hell are we doing here?"  While we were staying at Karen's in Hilo for the last few weeks, I was really gung ho about the idea of roughing it on the land.  I had a romantic vision of being without electricity and running water.  But the truth about roughing it is that it's rough.  Simple tasks like washing the dishes involve me taking the dishes out to the lawn, where the hose we have set to the water tank is, and doing them out there.  Sometimes it rains on me, sometimes I miss the rain.  What would usually take me 10 minutes at a sink takes me about 20 out on the lawn.  By the way, Kim thinks it's hilarious and very citified of me to refer to the massive two acres of cut forest grass, which surrounds the cabin, as "the lawn".

We've been dealing with flying insects at night.  Last night the gnats were especially fierce in their swarming.  Kim came downstairs after putting Bodhi to bed and found me on our open deck in front of the laptop with a towel over my head to keep the mosquitos and gnats from my ears.  She had a great idea of setting up one of our mosquito nets around us.  And so there we were huddled around the computer checking facebook, surrounded by the white gauzy net, the mosquitos trying to figure out a way in.  It was romantic in an "Out of Africa" kind of way.

The mosquitos have gotten to Bodhi.  The little sweetheart has about 14 red mosquito bites on his face.  When we first moved here, I promised myself that I wouldn't let him look like some backwoods kid with dirt all over his face and tattered rags on his body.  I knew I would take him for a proper hair cut so he didn't look like he had a chopped up do, for example.  I'm not doing such a good job.  His beautiful face has seen better days.  He has the bites on it, there is a big scab on his forehead from a sandbox accident at school, and because he's had a runny nose, he seems to always have a snotty crust under his nose and around his mouth.  Kim reminds me when I get down on myself about it that he would get mosquito bites in Nu‘uanu, kids are bound to have accidents, and they get snotty.  She is so wise.  But it doesn't help the pounding question lighten it's thump on my head.

I've been really impressed with our sawdust toilets, which for now is simply five gallon buckets with a special lid shaped like a toilet seat.  After we do our business, we sprinkle a few handfuls of sawdust into the bucket and close the lid.  I've used many different toilets, from very modern to very primitive.  When we lived in Japan, I went over to a student's house for a tutoring session and asked to use the toilet.  I went to the bathroom and saw this toilet with all of these electronic buttons on it.  It was very impressive.  When I came back to my student, I asked her what all the buttons on the toilet were for.  Her English wasn't very good and she tried to explain to me that it was a washing machine.  I thought, "Wow, these Japanese really have it going on with space efficiency."  I asked her, if you put the clothes in the bowl and close the lid to operate the machine.  She looked at me confused and laughed.  "No, no" she stood up and began pointing to her butt and saying,"wash, wash."  It was a bidet.

For now the sawdust toilets are out in the open and not in an enclosed bathroom.  Lucky for us, we are not shy about doing our business in front of each other.  Our marriage actually started that way on our honeymoon in Bali.  As it happens when traveling to places like Indonesia, we got food poisoning and both of us had tremendous cases of diarrhea.  The place we were staying in had very thin walls separating the bathroom from the bedroom.  So every blowout explosion and fart we let go could be heard by the other.  We took turns between moaning on the toilet and  sprawling out on the bed for the first few days of our romantic getaway.

Lucky for us too that the sawdust toilet hasn't been smelling.  It's truly amazing with the amount of stuff that is in the bucket, there is no smell.  The sawdust really works at keeping down the odor.  But there has been a smell that has been following me the last few days.  I couldn't quite figure it out and it was making me self conscious.  At first it was in the car.  I was driving to town and there was a slight smell of crap in the car.  I thought maybe we left some food in there or something.  I checked around and found nothing.  A few days later, I'm in the hardware store, squatting to see one of the lower shelves and the smell wafts up again. I thought, "Oh gosh, did I not wipe myself up properly this morning."  I thought, no, I'm pretty thorough about those things.  I looked at the bottom of my sandal to see if I stepped on some doggie doo.  No, nothing there.  But then it occured to me it was coming from my footwear.  I took off my leather sandals and smelled it and a terrible grimace came over my face.  My city folk ways did not realize that leather sandals in one of the wettest places in the US is not a good idea.  From doing dishes in the lawn to stepping in mud puddles to getting caught in the rain, my sandals never dried properly and were beginning to smell like a big pile of you know what.  In an effort to acclimate to my new environment I am now sporting a nice pair of rubber Crocs.

This has been the process of learning for Kim and I.  We love our Volvo XC90, but we stick out a little in a place where most people have Ford or Chevy work trucks.  Yesterday when we went to the open market, we took out our Maclaren stroller for Bodhi to ride in while we shopped.  As soon as I got to the shopping area, the Maclaren got stuck in the rocky pathways of the market, not something that would happen on the paved streets of Honolulu.  The learning curve is steep for Kim and I, but we are certainly getting an education.

Moving to a new place, despite if it is on grid or not is very challenging.  Daily routines are upset by not being able to locate certain items because they are in a box somewhere.  You know you've seen the item, but cannot quite recall where. So an extra few minutes are spent looking as the sun goes down, and it's getting darker and darker as you look for a lantern to light the way.  Add to this a screaming three year old who really, really, really wants his remote control train that is somewhere in the pile of other things that need to get unpacked and you have a very, very, very stressful situation.  Needless to say we have been a little frazzled in this transition to our new life.  The other morning Kim was particularly frustrated with how unsettled we were.  I looked at her and calmly said, "You know, life isn't as serious as our minds make it out to be."  She shot me a fire breathing glance and said, "Can we not do bumper stickers right now?"  Sometimes I'm just full of platitudes from whatever I've been reading.  Sometimes it's just better to listen.

The pounding question of, what the hell are we doing is only a mere tap on my forehead right now.  And to answer the question, we are here to experience more freedom in our lives.  Not the kind of freedom you hear about in the news that justifies why we go to war.  No, that kind of freedom only provides a false sense of security based on intimidation.  No, we are wanting the kind of opening of your arms and surrendering freedom.  The kind of freedom that comes from trusting that you are being divinely guided as long as you take the time to to be silent and listen to your inner guidance.  We are open to the kind of freedom that comes from knowing who you are when you are not running for cover.  We are willing to experience the kind of freedom that comes from taking the big leap and knowing the net will appear.  This answer gelled for me this morning as I started the car to drive to Hilo.  Now, some of you are going to think I made this up.  Well, I am not making this up.  As I turned the ignition on the car, the pounding question was loud and clear, but over the radio came Tom Petty's voice singing, "I'm free------free fallin'!"  I know, I know, Jerry Macguire did it before me, but honest that's what was playing on the radio.  After that the DJ played Queen's "I Want to Break Free."  Really, he did.

The Universe speaks to us in many different ways.  Let's listen.