Happening
The sun has only been up for a little while. The big round window in the bedroom we are staying in faces east, so the light comes in and casts a sun-shaped light across the bed and onto the wall. Out room for the past week has been the penthouse: up on the third storey of the big herb drier/classroom/workshop/communal space at Living Waters in Denmark, Western Australia.
We are leaving tomorrow.
The sky is bright blue. Cloudless. Birds and the tap tap of dew dripping off the tin roof are the sounds I can hear. Lily is in bed still, putting her contacts in, moisturising and playing with her hair, looking for ways to make it sit in a way she likes. I am sitting on a few pillows in the corner of the room, typing.
Yesterday was the biggest Market Day of the year for Denmark. Stalls, food, music, fundraising and lots of people.
I went for a paddle yesterday morning with Grant. Grant is Allison's husband. Allison did the PDC in January, where we met. She's a journalist mum traveller runner gardener cook (the list goes on) and now blogger. (http://thiscosycorner.blogspot.com.au) I dropped Lily off at yoga then headed down to the river mouth. Mist floated above the water, lit just by the thin early morning sunlight. Pelicans watched us from across the channel on a little island of rocks or grass or mud that neither of us had seen before. We paddled up river and chatted. Passing the town centre and under the bridge, the river narrowed. We slid up and over submerged logs to keep going, enjoying the little obstacles and the search for an end-point - an end that was not just our choice but a tree blocking our path that said we'd made it to the end, it's time to turn around now.
Last night many of the people who have signed up to eventually move into the Living Waters Eco-Village were here for dinner.
Ron had caught a shark, so there was fish beautifully prepared by Lou, who has been connected with the place for the last thirty years. Ron was the electrician who first connected power to the block, after Ron and Lou drove down, at 10kms an hour, with the power pole strapped to the top of their panel van! Ron and Lou's son Sam and his girlfriend Erin came. Sam is dyslexic but didn't go anywhere without his girlfriend and his copy of Book 4 of Tomorrow When the War Began.
Eddie and Annie came down from Perth. He a vibrant bright-eyed enthusiastic person, she a little more sedate. He has been teaching and managing telephone sales teams for the RAC for a long time, and hating it at times. He did a Permaculture Design Certificate 20 years ago and for years taught PDC courses with Dave. Their son Luke also came down with three mates. They camped over near the camp kitchen and had a fire.
Troy and Cathy, who are just starting to build so they can get out of renting in Denmark while trying to sell their property in Balingup, were also there, with their three little ones.
Of course, Claire and Dave, Fliss and John, Sarah and Jeremy, and all of their kids and grandkids and kid's friends came, as well as Mark, the wwoofer. All together about about 25 people came.
There was noise and chatter until the early hours, rising and falling as kids came and went and adults drank and stopped drinking or went to bed. As an outsider it was lovely to see the vision of community represented not just in pink and yellow tape tied to trees, which are used to mark boundaries of blocks, drain lines and power and phone cables, or on paper, or in the black and white sign Lily and I painted on Thursday (which lists who the developer, surveyor and contractor are under the heading Town Planning Scheme #3 Amendment 77).
Instead, the vision of community was represented in people coming and going, sharing a meal, laughing and catching up, sitting and sharing their pasts (the story of the Blues Festival that featured mostly thrash metal bands organised by Rob stands out, and through that story came the history of Rob and Danny - Dave's son and Rob's best mate, who died but who lives on in both Rob and in the place); their present (we sang happy birthday, because Sam turned sixteen yesterday) and their futures (Annie pointed to where her and Eddie's block is; they'll probably move down in four to eight years, but it was possible to already see the view of the inlet from their front verandah that will be there when they get around to it).
It's gatherings like this that enable the group to get together and see and feel that progress is being made. As I went to bed I heard Lou and Claire both saying that it felt like it was becoming real, like it was almost in their grasp.
Observing
The scratching on the roof sounded like an animal scrambling for a foothold. I turned and looked. A kookaburra. She or he watched us. To me the tuft of feathers above the beak and eyes look like a furrowed brow. They hold their square heads solidly upright and to me look like they are proud. The seem to be concentrating on and I felt her eye me with that quick serious intent that allows her to decide whether I am a threat or a grasshopper waiting to be breakfast.
Being thankful for
The room we've stayed in has been beautiful. The round window, the light and space and the view, which adds more light and space, make it a great place to come to.
People with a willingness and enthusiasm for other people. Eddie's way of saying hello.
Coming downstairs and seeing Lily and Cathy talking on the verandah. Lily and Cathy had met just a few hours before (when they started chatting while Lily was on the compost toilet and Cathy was waiting outside) and when I came down they were talking about family, photography, the internet and housing construction - which amounted to a mosaic of stories of themselves, their relationships, dreams and passions - with the kind of warmth and enthusiasm that women seem to find with each other so easily and so well.
Magazines. Cool magazines inspire and inform. Cool magazines made out of paper, often by people interested in skateboarding and graphic design open up new things and say that looking hard at what is here and now can be worthwhile. It was a cool magazine I read at Raven's - the coffee shop in town - that introduced me to the Noun Project, which is cool. (I may have overused the world cool, to the point where it's not cool anymore, but that's cool.) To check it out, goto http://thenounproject.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment