Grief

Yesterday, we buried our friend Junior.
I have been dreading a situation like this one ever since we entered into the lifestyle we have. Being this close to the suffering in this neighborhood makes one suffer a lot more. And now, our community is suffering a great loss. He was taken from us too early and too unexpectedly. My sweet memories of him have had me both crying and laughing the past few days. Junior was quite the character. We had a unique relationship with Junior that we don't have with our other homeless friends.

We were lucky to have seen him shortly before his death and remind him that we loved him. We will sorely miss you Junior, your loud ass voice and demanding demeanor. Your sweet smile and balding head. Your classic quotes: "bozo the clown, king of the morons!" "west by god Virgina". Your protection of us, your kids. Your protection of our front porch. Your singing. Your inappropriate remarks. Cleaning the wounds on your feet. You in Jonathan's bathrobe, six sizes too small. You talking to yourself in the garden. You running down the median with Kelly and I trying to see a fire down the street. Your crazy ass stories.

We are sorry for the times we had to turn you away. The times we were too busy or exhausted to take care of you. The times I avoided sitting next to you at church because I wanted to hear the message. All precious moments with you that were missed and I regret them. How I wouldn't love to have one more day with you. One more time to tell you how much we love you and how special you truly are.

We will visit you often in the garden at St Johns, and more importantly... we will keep telling your stories, as often as we can.

I had the honor of being able to read at Juniors funeral yesterday, to a church packed full of people that Junior has impacted over the years. I read "On Death" from the book The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. The end of that reading is beautiful and peaceful and is helping me cope.

It reads;
"For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."

You are free Junior. Free from the cold, the pain, the suffering. Free from illness, from hunger, from rejection, from hurt. You have a home, a new body, perfect health, warmth, and love from a source that we are all so far from. You are singing and dancing with your creator. And you are probably sitting in a big chair, watching us, laughing, calling us bozo's.


I am grieving. We as a community are grieving, and I have always liked what Anne Lamott has to say about grief...

"All those years I fell for the great palace lie that grief should be gotten over as quickly as possible and as privately. But what I've discovered since is that the lifelong fear of grief keeps us in a barren, isolated place and that only grieving and heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it."

"I'm pretty sure that it is only by experiencing that ocean of sadness in a naked and immediate way that we come to be healed- which is to say, that we come to experience life with a real sense of presence and spaciousness and peace."

Troop Franklinton

Two of my best friends and I decided one day to start a girl scout troop in Franklinton.

We did the training and stuff and finally had our first meeting last night at St Johns.

Thirteen beautiful and broken girls showed up to meet their 3 beautiful and broken leaders...

we had to ask one girl to leave because she was crazier then any of us knew what to do with. very broken girl in probably a very broken situation.

one precious girl, when answering what girls scouts means to her said,

"we (girl scouts) are BRAVE."

it broke my heart.

later she asked what we are supposed to do if someone comes to girl scouts to beat us up?

we (troop leaders) shocked, looked around awkwardly and then explained that this was a safe place and people we were not going to come here to beat us up.

and another little girl asked what we are to do when people break in to get us.


that fucked me up. how the fuck do you answer 5 and 6 year olds asking these kind of questions.

this is no troop beverly hills...

Summer photo update...

Our neighbors testing out our new couch before we can...



A quick escape out of fton to get out into the country and see the stars...

camping...

Girls weekend!

Fourth of July girls weekend...

My darling...

First harvest of our onion greens and our sour cherries!

Birthday post

Today... I am 24.

We had a lovely cookout last night in our yard with our closest friends and it was everything I could have ever wanted.

We grilled up a bunch of veggie dogs, some marinated veggies, and corn. We made a bunch of dips and had margaritas. The weather was perfect and we had a really nice time chatting and sitting amongst our large garden.
Ahhh... friends and grills and summer weather.

I was awoken this morning with breakfast and coffee in bed by my sweet sweet boyfriend. He made up a little menu of everything in the kitchen that we could have and made check boxes for me to choose what I wanted to eat.

I chose toast and watermelon and we sat and drank coffee and chatted the morning away.

We took care of the chickens and worked in the garden a bit later on in the morning, tore out the bad lettuce and planted more peppers and tomatoes. We will have many many tomatoes and peppers, so we must learn to make salsa quick.

Then we went to peruse the arts festival in downtown Columbus and gawk at all the expensive art we will never own. It was nice. Its also nice knowing that we never HAVE to own that kind of shit.

Then we headed to the north market in search of some special watermelon. I am on a watermelon kick in case you couldn't tell. They didn't have it... but we got some more sweet corn and zucchini instead.

Once we got home we decided to "hit the f-in town" with Jy and Kelly. We had a late lunch at the Happy Greek in the short north then walked around there for awhile. We got chased by a nasty thunderstorm and we ran from the lightening. We found shelter in a coffee shop and read newspapers and played a competitive game of scrabble before heading home.

There is nothing better to do on a rainy day but lounge around so we did that for a bit before Greg and I took a little walk through the neighborhood and found a few sweet cherry trees and some mulberry trees to snack on.

All in all its been a lovely 24th birthday spent with those I love most.

We are now onto a glass of red wine and some harry potter...

How to build a community garden...

... according to us Franklinton folk that is...

Step # 1... find an empty lot you won't get kicked out of. Consider guerrilla gardening if you don't have access to land you won't get kicked out of.

Step # 2... find a group of dedicated friends.

Step # 2 1/2... chain saw down dead trees in the yard.

Step # 3... get dirt and lots of compost.

Step # 4... get lots of wood. Be sure it is not pressure treated wood. You don't want treated lumber leeching toxins into your soil and your food.

Step # 5... get a drill and a bucket of 2 inch wood screws and build raised beds. Our beds were 4 feet by 8 feet but you can make them whatever size you choose. Consider being able to reach in the middle of the bed to plant/ weed/ harvest.

Step # 6... Lay beds. Space them out so you can work in between each one. We spaced ours about 2 feet apart.Step # 7... Lay a liner in the bottom if you haven't turned over the sod so weeds can't get through. It is probably optimal to turn over the sod and cover with straw/ cardboard for a week before. But as you can see, we layed a garden liner. Don't forget to poke holes so your water will drain!

Step 7 1/2... level beds

Step # 8... find some awesome neighborhoods kids who are eager to hang out and climb heaps of soil to help you fill wheel barrels.

Step # 9... Fill beds with said soil/ compost. And borrow your equipment from Keep Columbus Beautiful for free!

This picture below shows a good shot of empty beds... lined beds... and filled beds... and hard workers.

Step # 10... spread out soil evenly in beds... fill to at least one inch below top of bed. The soil will settle and soil level will drop quite a bit.

Step # 11... Top off beds with soil and you are ready to plant!

Our chicken journey...

In mid April we got 10 chicks to raise up to egg laying hens!

It has been fun watching them grow and fun/ frustrating trying to build them a suitable and safe home in Franklinton.

This was them the week we got them. They lived inside for about 6 weeks under a heat lamp until they were old enough and it was warm enough for them to go outside. We spent that time building a coup outside and a protected run for them to run around in.

Here they are a little older and a little smarter and they are trying to see the world on the other side of their box.

More pictures to come of the coup and their new home outside...

Oysters and the South Pacific Ocean

I made it to New Zealand!

It took 24 hours of long traveling, combined with some wine and ambien, but made it nonetheless.

I ate some fresh from the oyster farm oysters white sitting above the south pacific ocean.

Shocking!

How much more incredible could this be?

Snowed in 2010

I love counting on yearly snow-ins.

Last year it was in March and we were stranded at the boys house in Franklinton. Now we are all living together here and stranded again. Funny how things evolve. This time last year we were dreaming of everything we are doing right now... and now we are dreaming of even greater things than this...

I am looking forward to a reflection a year from now to see how things have evolved.

I am sitting inside, cold, watching the rest of my housemates run around the median in snow gear playing winter tackle football and frisbee. Kelly, the only woman out there, is really holding her own.

I just watched her wildly fling herself into the snow... get half way up and then fling herself helplessly back into the snow. hahaha. Such freedom, such beauty.

The boys are out there ramming into each other and tossing one another into the snow.

Oh happy days.

What are we thinking of and dreaming of and working on these days?

Here is a quick list...

Coffee shop in Franklinton, for a place of community gathering, a place for artistic expression, a place to employ locals, a place to keep our homeless friends warm in the winter and serve them a hot cup of coffee.

Community garden move to the two plots of land on either side of our house for growing our own food and helping our neighbors grow their own food.

Bike shop grant, pretty self explanatory, for developing the already existing bike shop.

Food co op, to finally get a place that can sell decent food in this neighborhood.

Renters rights education for our neighbors to fight their slumlords.

Creatively trying to resist gentrification and the placement of a casino into the neighborhood.

Weekly services in our basement chapel, usually by candle light, observing advent and now Epiphany, in attempt to deepen our spirituality and continue in worship.

That sums it up for now... there are people to warm up and coffee to drink...

Peace and peace!