Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home. Show all posts

Thursday, September 6, 2018

#VanLife Day 121 or Coddiwomple Cares


I haven't been blogging very much and I suppose, that is a tired trait I've exhibited on many of my blogs.  I hoped to arrest that habit with this blog but old habits die hard.

A while back I stopped doing day-by-day blogs and chose to only post more inspired or at least noteworthy content and while there have certainly been some noteworthy events since my last entry, I didn't feel that I wanted to blog about them. As a result, I just didn't blog.

The long and the short of it is that I made some miscalculations in the beginning of my trip or perhaps more accurately, I made some problematic choices that had some unforeseen consequences. As a result, there have been some setbacks in regard to my income flow from the glass business as well as to my continued travels.

To help rectify the situation I took a job to replenish my depleted coffer. I haven't had a paid position in many, many, many years, at least since I was a hospice chaplain. It's been and continues to be a bit of an adjustment for me, if not also a bit humbling. I know right, welcome to the life of most folks! All in all, I'm thankful.

The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful place to be sure, filled full of interesting people but then I find people interesting everywhere I go. The flora and fauna is also of extreme interest to me. The days pass by and I enjoy the beach and the water, the people and the places, the pizza and the wine, and life moves along slowly.

That being said, I still feel like I haven't quite done what I set out to do when I came to this place, so far flung from the rest of the country and that is unsettling.

I haven't traveled much further than Port Townsend and while I've done a craftshow and sold some glass within the community, I haven't done much with the glass business or as much as I had hoped to.

I also haven't done as much with the church as I had hoped. I've been able to meet with one of the bishops of Christ Catholic Church and that was a great joy. However, I had hoped to meet with more clergy in the general area than I have to date.

Having said all of that, I have to say this, my journey thus far hasn't been pointless. It has just been more of an inward exploration than an outward exploration. Of course I knew that would be part of the sojourn IIhad embarked upon but I hadn't anticipated that that would play as a consuming role as it has.

I struggle with two deeply seated instincts. The first is to return to my beloved Ozark Mountains and my many friends and family who live there. It is an almost constant yearning. I long to return to well worn patterns and places  and to a culture that is familiar and comforting to me.

I struggle with my need to nest, to create a home and or work space that also offers those patterns, activities, and things that are familiar to me: a place that comforts and delights me where I can entertain others as well as myself and showcase my creativity.

To that end, I actually leased a very small 200 sqft studio in which to blow glass, though I did dodge a journey ending lease on an enchanted Knot House in which to dwell. Whew! It was close. I may give up my studio yet as well. It's a gateway to the world of nesting.

The only thing I know for sure is that I need to book some fall craftshows and turn my focus to Christmas. I might not blog again for a while as I'm heading into my busiest time of the year. We'll see...

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Future Perfect Tense

I will have returned to Eureka Springs Arkansas sometime before my death.  That much is certain, unless death comes suddenly and surprisingly.  However, even so, perhaps even then, I will have returned to Eureka Springs after my death.  All the best ghosts do you know after all it is the most haunted place in America, so the tour guides say.

Be that as it may, I returned today to call on my wholesale accounts and to deliver some handblown glass hummingbird suncatchers to one of my favorite little stores, the Velvet Otter.


The Velvet Otter is a quaint little antique/gift store on Highway 62 out at Inspiration Point.  For many years, it was a glass shop owned and operated by a lampwork glassblower by the name of Jerry Driggers.  I loved visiting his shop as a kid, watching him blow glass and often watching the sunset out his back windows overlooking the White River.  It's a picture perfect place.

Periodically I get to missing Eureka Springs and I have to get my fix.  I had been experiencing withdrawals of late and so it was time to return for a bit.  My trip was shorter than expected.  After I got there, I just wasn't feeling it.


It's a beautiful place and if you've never visited it you should.  It's a wonderful little Victorian Village out of the late 1800's sprinkled with hippies, artists, spiritualists, religious fundamentalists, survivalists, motorcyclists, poets, writers, romantics, and misfits of various kinds.  Just about everyone will find something to love in Eureka Springs.  I certainly have.


It has many beautiful Victorian homes in the downtown area that rival the great Painted Ladies of San Francisco even and it has a very interesting and eclectic shopping district full of artists, craftspeople, and unique shops.


It's a place to see for sure and one that I will have returned to some day if time allows.  I've visited Eureka Springs on and off throughout my life, I've loved there from time to time, I've lived there for about a year, and had art galleries there over the years but it's the springs that will always call me back.









Saturday, July 18, 2015

Feel the Heat

This morning everything was so clear in my mind. There was a gentle cooling breeze and the day was fresh and so was I. Not long after that, the heat hit and it’s been all downhill since. It’s amazing how working out in one hundred degree heat can rob you of your strength and even, in my case, my wits! I suppose I complicated matters by working with a torch burning somewhere right around three thousand degrees give or take a little. It’s a hot job I know but someone has to do it.

I have been trying to start my day by blowing glass in the cool hours of the morning, hours that had previously been reserved for riding Dominic, my Globe Vienna hybrid bike, on the bike trails of Fayetteville. Today as the temperature rose I pushed myself further and further into the heat of the day wanting to make one little glass hummingbird suncatcher after the next.

I have set up my glassblowing studio in the garage and while that offers some cover from the elements, heat is not one of them that it protects me from, in fact, it acts like a little roasting oven and I’m the turkey. With the torch, lights, and oxygen concentrator I create a generous amount of heat to contribute to global warming and I have yet to install and fire up my little woad blue kiln.

As I sat there making hummingbird after hummingbird and listening to the Carolina Chocolate Drops, my mind raced over my next few blog posts. It was like a manic attack of creativity. I was in the zone. I must have composed at least eight of my next one thousand word posts and indeed mapped out the rest of the year. The juices were flowing and if I had been set up to dictate from the torch I would have had it made.

But no and as a result, as the temperature continued to rise, the creativity started to sweat out of me…

As the heat rose my brained hazed over and my body complained until eventually, sometime this afternoon, I dripped into the house to the sanctuary of a darkened air conditioned room and drifted off to find refuge from a pounding headache.

As a child I was always out and about. It didn’t matter the weather conditions hot or cold, wet or dry, whatever. I was almost always off on my bike somewhere doing something. One summer day, not unlike today, I had spent the greater part of which pedaling around my hometown of Springfield Missouri. I didn’t have sense enough to come in from the heat as it never really bothered me, that is until it did.

On this particular one hundred five degree day when I must have been about nine, I had pushed myself just a little too hard. I remember being about a mile from home when I thought I might be getting into trouble physically. My head started to pound and then, even though I knew I was hot, I began to get the weirdest cold chills and start to shake. I made it home on my bike but at a price. I had a heat stroke.

I’ll never forget the pounding relentless headache and the odd sensations in my body, the dizziness and the nausea. I lay on a couch and didn’t move for hours that evening. I finally found the strength and presence to climb into bed and sleep it off. I haven’t been the same since. After that day I’ve been particularly sensitive to heat and never allow myself to in be a position of being too overheated. As a result when the thermometer reads 90 degrees I no longer ride my bike.

Today wasn’t nearly like the experience of my childhood. I knew I was getting to hot and I shut down. I was just a little taken back by how much it drained me mentally and creatively. I joked with a good friend of mine earlier in the morning about being in a manic creative state and I was just waiting for the crash. Well the crash came.

So now all of those outlines are a jumbled mess in my mind. My outline for the year all but a forgotten memory. This was not even my planned blog post of one thousand words today but I refuse to give into writer’s block so early in the game.

This whole event has helped me to plan for better cataloging of my ideas, thoughts, and inspirations. It also offers the occasion for me to pursue a new piece of technology that I’ve been wanting for some time, a smart watch, and no not an Apple, gack. As I spend more and more time on the torch, a “smart watch” or “wrist computer” as a friend likes to call them, could be a very convenient wearable piece of technology for me. Of course Google glass could be even better but that’s a whole other level of technology for this one eyed person to embark upon.

It’s interesting. My first smart phone was a purchase to augment my glass business. My foray into bluetooth ear buds was also an aid to my glass work. Once again my glass work drives my need and new technology is explored. Fascinating.

Speaking of new technology and the glass business, I’ve also been thinking about investing in a GoPro camera with which to do videos for glassblowing lessons on my YouTube channel. I realize I could accomplish the same thing with my phone, laptop, or even my Samsung NX300 camera but somehow I feel the need for a more professional and or dedicated piece of technology to do the job. And then, it could simply be an excuse to buy a new toy but that’s okay too!

We’ll see. At the price of hummingbirds these days, ten dollars apiece, to purchase these new devices I would have to sell at least fifty of them retail and twice that amount wholesale. I better get back on the torch and stop spending time on this at the keyboard typing.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Can You Ever Go Home?

Can you ever go home? Conventional wisdom seems to say no, you can never go home. Such wisdom would suggest that once you leave, things change and try as you might it's awful hard to find your way back to that which you left. Such is the state in which I find myself...

I visited Eureka Springs Arkansas today, as I had an order of blown glass hummingbird suncatchers to deliver to a shop over in that neck of the woods. It was a gorgeous day, even it it was a tad bit on the sultry side and the drive through the Ozarks Mountains was refreshing and inspiring as always. I concluded my business in the afternoon and headed to Eureka Springs to try and entice a few shop keepers and gallery owners to purchase some of my art work. 

Eureka Springs is a little Victorian oasis nestled on the side of Crescent Mountain in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas. Now, truthfully, Eureka encompasses more than the historic loop which winds its way up to the top of Crescent Mountain but that's the heart of the hidden little hamlet.

It's rich in history, eccentricity, art, crafts, Christian fundamentalism, commercialism, beautiful geography, magical springs, Pagans, Wiccans, Faerie, hippies, nudists, and it's as queer as a three dollar bill! It has been called the San Francisco of the Ozarks and rightfully so, what's more, it flies its colors with pride. We even have our own version of the Golden Gate Bridge!

Eureka has been a tourist town since, well, forever I suspect, and over the years the demographics of the tourists that visit, as well as those folks who call it home, have changed as the times have changed but it's always been a melting pot of sorts. The factions have lived in civility for the most part and blended nicely to make a flavorful soup. We are, after all, Southerners, and that counts for something. And like that statement, Eureka isn't always what it appears to be at any given glance and you have to peel layer after layer to sometimes get to the heart of the artichoke. Are we talking about artichoke soup?

What's more, with perhaps one exception, I have always taken the loves of my life to Eureka Springs, of which there have been several. It's like some sort of romantic rite of passage for relationships of mine. I've been married in Eureka Springs and I've honeymooned in Eureka Springs, not with the same spouse both times. The one exception to this eros-sian rendezvous was a wonderful girl who lived in Michigan and with whom I fell madly in love one frigid evening in downtown Chicago. We were teenagers at a high school journalism conference, loose in the city, looking for adventure, and we found one another. It was teenage love but alas we never made it to Eureka Springs together. Who knows what would have happened had we made that pilgrimage of the heart?! Probably charges of kidnapping and transporting a minor over state lines or some such nonsense but that's another story.

I think I've explored every square inch of Eureka Springs and most of it multiple times. It's my go to place when life is being life and not what I think life should be. It's my place to regroup, to rethink, to re-purpose, to reevaluate, and somehow I always manage to find myself again when I visit. Perhaps it's because I left a little part of my heart there forty years ago when, as a child, I discovered the magical place of my dreams.

The Eureka of today is somewhat different than the Eureka of my childhood. The "dragon trees" are still there and the candy store where we would procure the giant jawbreakers is still there - with a taffy machine in the window working on the same pull of taffy it was working on all those years ago. I've had a love affair with that city for perhaps forty years. The Eureka today though has become a mecca for the motorcyclists and not just a couple of them, all of them. Of all the different folks who have taken up with Eureka Springs, the motorcyclists are my least favorite. Not that I don't care for them as people, though there are some who try my inclusive little heart, but I hate the noise pollution. The noise alone shatters the sacred and unhinges the heart.

Anyway, I ventured back today, partly because I wanted to hit up the shops and galleries for some business, partly because it was a beautiful day and like a homing pigeon on such days, I just head that direction, and partly because life has been kicking me around a bit lately and I needed some time to be there. I didn't spend nearly enough time there and plan to go back in two days to spend more time.

A couple of years ago I fulfilled a dream to move to Eureka Springs. I had always wanted to live there and just knew that if I ever did, I would be in heaven. I really did love it and maybe more than I realized at the time but for several reasons, none of which I'll go into in this blog post, after a year of living in Eureka Springs on Bear Mountain, I moved on to Fayetteville Arkansas, a place I call the Promised Land.


Since that move I have toyed with moving back to Eureka Springs. It always calls to me and has always done so. I suspect it will never be silent, being a place that resonates with my soul on some deep level. Today when I was there I kicked around where my old studio use to be and to my surprise it was empty - my heart fluttered! Could it be? Could I move back and have my old studio again? Really? Oh, it seemed too good to be true and it was. 

The complex where my studio had been is now owned by Harley-Davidson. Across from where my quaint little Victorian studio was now sits a big fat in-your-face Harley-Davidson shop flanked by a smoke shop, a tattoo parlor, and Bud's Beers and Brauts. What's more, half the parking lot was dedicated to "motorcycles only" and had been sectioned off with gates and warning signs. Hardly the neighborhood for me. The noise alone with drive me to fits.

My heart sank...and I left...I really couldn't go home after all.

After that rather shocking discovery I made pilgrimage to the Holy Hill where I visited some dear friends at a delightful place called Hillspeak, an Episcopal retreat center of sorts with books galore. I was blessed with the most delightful conversations and I had a particularly wonderful conversation, as is always the case, with one very dear friend. She is perhaps one of my most favorite people in my beloved little alpine village and we laughed and carried on as only we know how to do. By the time I left I had almost forgotten about the motorcycle scourge that is spreading throughout Eureka, almost.

I'll return in a couple of days and I plan on giving the Harley people a wide berth. I'll wander the Carthage stone streets, climb the hills, and visit the sacred springs. I doubt I could go back to live but I will go to visit my heart.