PP #10: The struggle to be free...
Project: Pioneer #10 December 6, 2023 (Wednesday 11am)
We live! This was always going to be a tough, chaotic week. We knew that. But, we had no idea what we were truly in for. People might think we exaggerate or dramatize in this journal. In fact, it’s the opposite. I worry people won’t even believe these events, so I downplay to some extent. Let’s begin, let’s try. I’ll have to do this chronologically.
Project: Pioneer is the live reality journal of a couple and their small dog as they leave their ‘normal’ life in a luxury apartment for a new semi-off grid life in a small recreational vehicle, just at the start of winter. We cover prepping, politics, spirituality, afterlife, RV life, and personal finance. (Audio at this link, Apple, and Spotify)
Nov 24-29: Madcap daily increasing hustle to get things packed up, sold, organized for the move. We started marking our remaining small items down to free, which caused a whole other problem (see below), but out the door they went. We donated at ton of clothing, office supplies, and other items, which felt great. In the middle of this, there was also a family emergency to deal with, which always come first.
Nov 30 (Saturday): The big day, we have to be out. The monster desk remained, stubbornly squatting in the office, as we cleaned around it. Polling revealed 66% of you said to let it go, it’s just a thing. Giavana urged me to find a way to keep it. I reluctantly marked it as free, inspiring a sudden gusher of bargain seekers and lunatics, which occupied more of my time, dealing with them. So, at $25 for a big beautiful cherry real wood desk, crickets, but for free, people lose their damn minds? Eventually a serious dude (a little off, but serious nonetheless) came by and while trying to do last-minute packing/cleaning I helped him disassemble it, haul it out to his van, and load it (late in the exhausting day!) Goodbye, old friend :-(
We found a painting of Jesus that has been following us since our own journey together first started. It’s a bizarre thing—it seemed to appear in one of our earlier homes, neither of us owned it, so we never dared to part with it. Each move we consider giving it away, but just can’t. Into Henrik’s tail bed it went!
Exhausted and stressed, Giavana and I worked together to get through it and keep our spirits up. While driving, we pondered where and when we’d like to travel to in history (temporarily!) if given the chance. Giavana chose the Roaring 20s or 1950s (great fashion eras!). I chose to witness the Sermon on the Mount, those Beatitudes, greatest speech ever given. The Old Testament is all like, “you better behave or else you’ll burn in hell for eternity!” while the New Testament is all, “Just be kind to others…” A truck in front of me today had a bumper sticker that said, “Go f*ck yourself.” What things must have transpired in that person’s life to make them so miserable and hateful? Time travel would be cool, perhaps we get that in the afterlife, a chance to see and review all that had happened. An incredible novel on the topic, featuring one of my other time-travel choices (Dealey Plaza at President Kennedy’s assassination) is Stephen King’s 11/22/1963, get it as a gift for any readers on your list!
The cleaners came, thank God for them. You know, the local cleaning squads of little bitty ladies who come in, swarm the place for a few hours, and leave it sparkling for a low, low price. What an amazing job! Big tip for them. We had done a lot of the prelim work, as well. They went home with some of our stuff, as an additional gift.
One of the hardest things to move is a big freaking queen mattress and box spring, especially with the slippery plastic storage cover on. What a nightmare! Petite Giavana and I wrestled that beast down the hall, into the elevator, out the front door, cursing it as it wriggled from our grasp constantly, falling to the floor. We just couldn’t manage it into Henrik’s bed, despite many valiant tries. Out of nowhere an angel appeared, a very fit and strong female neighbor. Thank you to the Smiling Sojourner!
Late into the night we were loading Henrik to his gills, making runs to the storage unit and Red House. We made it out, finally (well, we thought so, read on…) and ended up collapsing in the RV bunk with quite a bit of our worldly belongings still stacked up outside. No more listening to the extremely overweight people above us stomping around at all hours of the night, yelling “F you!” to each other (he’s a pastor!), and vacuuming relentlessly. It was a beautiful, clear night, what could possibly go wrong by putting it all away in the morning when we’re rested?
Dec 1 (Sunday): We woke in the middle of the night to noise. What’s that?? A peek out the window revealed our worst fear. It was raining. Out the door I went, from our cozy nest, at 2am, frantically trying to cover up our most important items with whatever I could find.
After a few more restless hours of attempted sleep, we caved and just got up. Giavana started to put on her coat, but I convinced her to do the inside work while I took care of outside, ferrying things in to her. My granddaughter had a big cheerleading event nearby (they live over an hour away) and I had planned to go, but no longer could. It was very upsetting.
The day was one of the worst and hardest ever in my life, from the earliest hints of daylight until into the night in the cold, soaking, relentless rain. Skin red and raw, digits first in pain, to numbness, to refusing to work. Back, arthritic hips and wrists screaming in pain. Giavana coaxed me into a lunch of hot soup and grilled cheese (both incredible!) at our new favorite local cozy pub, which was a nice, short break. When I was finally at a stopping point, I came out of the pitch black deluge and into Red House soaking wet and she had a nice dry, warm set of clothes waiting for me. That’s love, that’s caring and consideration. Be kind to your spouse, just like you were in the very beginning, in that honeymoon phase. It’s easy to slip away from that in the stress of everyday life, but it sure would prevent a lot of horrible divorces.
December 5 (Tuesday) As we began to heal, settle in, put this horrible move in the rear-view mirror, we suddenly realized we never cleared out the storage locker at our old place! Back into Henrick, back to moving :-( I’ll talk about the intervening days and settling in during my next post.
Roslyn Carter died, and we caught some of the eulogy throughout all this. The service featured a beautiful rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine, a song that asks the question, “Wouldn’t we all be better off just believing in God, following the guidelines all religious texts lay down (basically, be kind…), and avoiding the greedy, hateful, abusive, controlling, cult-like mess that many organized religious devolve into?” Throughout the Carters entire lives, they were the epitome of Godly people, devoted to each other and selflessly giving to those with less, yet they were vilified and voted out in favor of a more flamboyant Hollywood actor, who ripped off the Social Security system (causing today’s massive concern!) and jacked the debt through the ceiling. Think the economy sucks? Think Trump and Republicans are “good for the economy?” Check these graphs below. Numbers don’t lie, but social media and “news” networks do! YOU ARE BEING GASLIT!
As we keep seeing, a Democrat comes in after a scandalous, economy wrecking Republican administration (Nixon/Ford in the Carter case), get blamed for the economy, and another Republican gets voted in (Reagan) who continues the cycle of running up massive debt with tax cuts for the wealthy and lies like trickle-down economics, which never even trickled to us, even a little bit. Bush senior made an economic mess which Clinton cleaned up nicely (despite his own scandal!), Biden is still trying (and succeeding wildly) cleaning up the mess left behind by a President who did a tremendous amount of damage to the economy (and cost hundreds of thousands of lives) by pretending the pandemic wasn’t a thing while it ravaged us. Just look at our economic recovery and success against inflation against the rest of the world. It’s staggering how much better we’ve done. And again, by whistle-clean Godly actual church-going people in the White House, who are being somehow vilified as a “crime family” with zero actual evidence at any point in their many decades of public service.
As Republican Liz Cheney just said, and Trump just admitted to Sean Hannity, we are sleepwalking into a dictatorship. Name me one dictatorship that has gone well for the people. Name one. Maybe I’m a modern-day Cassandra, but I’ll know I tried to save you. This is why we are preparing. In the face of almost certain and ever accelerating climate extinction (an iceberg three times the size of NYC has broken loose and now heading for warm water, not even picked up on the news…), we have a guy leading the polls who promises to drill, drill, drill on day one. An upcoming journal will focus on preparing for the worst, which is what we’re doing. We’ll list our essential items. If you think you’re “preparing” by stockpiling food, water, gas masks, etc guess what. Nothing compares to actually putting it in practice, as we are. When it comes time to execute the plan and actually live it, mistakes that could be fatal will be made. We are now living it in our pioneer journey at the foot of this mountain. This is our prepper training camp. We hope to be ready.
We’re watching All the Light You Cannot See on Netflix. Watch it and you cannot avoid the comparisons to today. Watch as the shocked people suddenly try to flee France as the worst happens, something they sat contentedly in denial believing would never happen. Will that be you, heading for the Canadian (or, ironically, Mexican) border, when you realize you’re not “in the club” of wealthy, white, straight, evangelical Christian males and hence subject to persecution and poverty yourself?
What’s next? Ok, I covered the journey of getting here. Next journal I’ll pick it up with actually living here, the experience so far, our missteps and course corrections over these six days so far. Live through it with us! Spoiler alert—there was an incident yesterday that involved many police, ambulances, and fire trucks at Red House. Too long to describe in this already too-long post, so stay tuned. And, more pictures coming for you paid subscribers. Please share this post on your socials!
"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."
— Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Revolution of Values," 1967
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I still have a shelf full of my novels and no room for them at Red House. I’ve asked our friends at Wild Lake Press to mark them down to half off, about $5, while supplies last, just for you pioneer journal readers (discount may not show until you check out). That’s pretty much my cost. If you buy any, you can let me know if you want a custom inscription and signature on it. Remember, many authors don’t get famous until they croak, so it could be an investment! Or, not. Sigh.
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