Tiny houses, travel & defining home

 What does it mean to be un-moored from any specific place?

SusanCaba
Resale Evangelista

Today, I’m writing from a hillside house in Santa Barbara. The scarlet bougainvillea —attended by hummingbirds—competes for sunlight with lavender blooms of jacaranda trees and spikey purple agapanthas in the garden. I walked outside in my robe this morning to have coffee by the pool overlooking dun-colored hills.

The Pacific is an indigo wedge on the horizon. I’ll swim a few lengths of the pool—no suit needed—before showering in a spa-like master bath with heated floors. For these two months, I’m driving a vintage white Mercedes dubbed “The Sugar Cube.”

In a way, house-sitting is an idyllic life. But I know the ultimate goal of my year of living restlessly is to find a place that feels permanent. Actually, I’ve come to realize that’s been a goal of mine my entire life. I’m also getting inklings that what I’m looking for is less a place than a sense–a sense of belonging. So far, I have only vague ideas–maybe daydreams, maybe delusions–of what that sense of belonging would look or feel like.

I started musing along these lines after coming across a couple of essays by San Francisco blogger Cheri Lucas Rowlands. She and her husband, another writer, have sold most of their stuff, rented their loft and are in the process of completing a tiny house–20 feet long, 8 feet wide, 131 square feet–on wheels. (They bought a partially completed model from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Co.)

Like me, Rowlands and her husband decided that finding their place in life required stripping down to the core.

“We want a physical home we can call our own — one we really do own, with no mortgage, excessive bills, or superfluous possessions to weigh us down. Escaping a mortgage and living more simply will free up money, which will free up time,” Rowlands wrote, describing the birth of her Tiny House Travelers journey.

But Rowlands and her husband, Nick, are looking at their decision to downsize and detach from any one location from a perspective beyond mere housing:

“As travelers…trying out different locations for size; as a couple exploring our relationship to our shared space and to each other; and as writers deeply interested in the evolution of space, place and home, and in people’s ties to physical objects and locations in a world where the boundaries between the ideas of the digital and the physical are becoming increasingly blurred.”

I’ve embarked on a similar adventure, through serial house-sitting. I hadn’t really articulated what I hoped to discover, other than a permanent place to live. My thoughts started to gel along the lines of “a sense of belonging” after reading Rowlands’ essay.

A few weeks back, I wrote about my friend Doreen Carvajal  unraveling mysteries about her family’s history that had been quietly churning in the back of her mind for decades. I started the post by asking, “What is the burning question in your life?”

“I’m asking” I wrote, “because I think the search for an answer–whatever the question–creates a sense of passion and purpose in life. I’m envious of those who not only have such a question (and recognize it) but summon the will, the energy and the resources to pursue the answer. In the process, those people experience a deep sense of satisfaction and, I think, come to know some fundamental truths about themselves.”

I haven’t been able to fully shape my burning question yet. But I think it’s related to finding that sense of belonging. And, as I wrote that last sentence, it occurred to me that instead of using the word “finding,” I should have written “creating.” As in creating that sense of belonging.

In a New York Times article about her quest to uncover family secrets, Doreen wrote: “We can change the story we tell about ourselves and, by doing that, change our future.”

Coincidentally, I had been thinking that the subtext of my year of living restlessly is, “Change my story, change my brain, change my life.” I’m a believer in the science that says we can “rewire” our brains by over-riding the stories about ourselves that we grew up believing.

That’s why I said I should have written “creating” a sense of belonging rather than “finding” a sense of belonging. Apparently, I have control over whether I belong or not. Now that’s a scary realization!

I’ll finish with one more thought from another of Rowlands’ essays, “What it means to write about travel.”

“Traveling can simply mean exploring–whatever your world, whatever your reality–and is often less about place and more about time, change and one’s relationship to a moment.”

In that sense, I’m traveling…aren’t we all?

 

 

 

 

The thing about peonies…

 Lush, blowsy, sensual…and fleeting

Susan Caba
The Resale Evangelista

“The flowers bend their bright bodies, and tip their fragrance to the air, and rise, their red stems holding all that dampness and recklessness gladly and lightly, and there it is again…beauty, the brave, the exemplary, blazing open….

“Do you also hurry, half-dressed and barefoot, into the garden and softly, and exclaiming of their dearness, fill your arms with the white and pink flowers, with their honeyed heaviness, their lush trembling, their eagerness to be wild and perfect for a moment, before they are nothing, forever?”

From “Peonies,” a poem by Mary Oliver

Peonies in bloom

Peonies are the flowers closest to my true heart. Not for me the strait-laced daffodils and simple tulips. I crave the peony and its unkempt beauty.

Big and bold, sensual and messy, sturdy enough to keep coming back in the garden for decades–but fleeting in their bloom time, best picked and savored when their buds are the size of fists. Bring them inside and they burst open like fireworks. Yes, sometimes they bring in ants. So what? Life has ants. Get over it.

Delicious and blowsy, the white blossoms are tipped with scarlet–the scarlet letter? The pinks are sugarplum fairies, a little girl’s dream. And the scarlet blooms? They unfold wantonly, revealing gaudy yellow pistils. Only their scent is subtle, a  soft and romantic fragrance that whispers intimacies.

It’s June and the peonies are blooming. When I lived in St. Louis, I would occasionally slip into the darkness of a June night with scissors, looting the neglected peony bushes of neighbors. They might be content to let the flowers bloom and wither without gathering them, but I was greedy. I wanted more peonies, even, than my own shrubs produced.

Peonies don’t grow in Santa Barbara–not for them a gentle climate; they need a harsh winter to produce their bounty. But the universe was generous. Trader Joe’s was awash in peonies, buds not yet burst, when I stopped in for groceries. True to my greedy self, I gathered an armload, then augmented them with ferns and geranium leaves cut from the gardens around the house into two billowing bouquets.

What, you may be asking, does this paeon to peonies (which, by the way, are named for Paean, physician to the gods of Greek mythology) have to do with a simplified, artful life–or with buying resale.

It’s simple, really. I’ve made physical and emotional room in my life to enjoy the beauty of the peonies,  and to take time to tell you why I love them. Could any pursuit be more luxurious? I think not.

 

 

 

 

 

Evening in Santa Barbara

I’ve settled in to my mid-summer house-sitting assignment. It is the epitome of living luxuriously for less–well, for nothing, actually. I’ll be here for six weeks, in one of the most beautiful places in the U.S.

This is what I mean by an artful life–watching the sun set over the Santa Barbara foothills, casting reflections on the swimming pool. The Pacific is a streak of indigo on the horizon. Only the distant roar of Highway 101 and the calls of a California bluejay break the silence. The woodpeckers who live in the tall palm tree standing sentinel over the house are quiet, and the coyotes have not yet begun their night-time howling. All three cats are safely inside and I’m enjoying the gloaming with a glass of bourbon.

Is there magic behind the blue door?

Susan Caba
The Resale Evangelista

There is something mysterious and welcoming about this tiny house in the foothills behind Santa Barbara. The tumble of rocks, the brick pathway, the capacious window and stout chimney. And, of course, the promise behind that big blue door.

I can just imagine writing there–the best writing spots, I find, hold me close and keep me focused, but with a comfortable, not constraining, embrace. I could slip into this artful gem with ease.

Just 500 square feet, it was crafted from handmade adobe bricks, reclaimed lumber and other salvaged material in the 1940s, part of what became known as the Mountain Drive Artist Colony. The Bohemian denizens of the colony became known for, among other things, their annual wine-making festival and the fact that they invented the hot tub.

A perfect place for morning coffee

What I call the Blue Door Cottage is one of just three of the originals that have survived the ravages of wildfires over the years. The Coyote Fire, named for the road on which the cottage sits, roared through in 1954, followed by the Sycamore Fire in 1977. The last, the Montecito Tea Fire in 2008, consumed 210 homes, including 22 from the Artist Colony era.

But it was fire that made the colony possible in the first place. The writer Bobby Hyde bought a large swath of charred land in the late 1940s, which he later parceled out to like-minded friends. One of those was architect Frank Robinson, who designed and built many of the houses in the neighborhood of unique homes. When a new resident came along, everyone worked together to help them build, including making bricks from the soil excavated for the house.

Hyde and his wife, Florence–known as Floppy, were “green” long before the term was coined. They were also the original hippies. Santa Barbara architect Jeff Shelton told a local writer that the Hydes and their neighbors advocated the concepts of “salvage chic, sustainability and simplicity.” Pull up your chair and soak in the warmth from the stone fireplace

They also staged frequent celebrations, including their annual Wine Stomp, conceived in 1952. The men filled a large wooden vat with grapes and selected a Wine Queen while the women prepared a feast. After the meal, the queen–wearing only a grape leaf crown–stepped into the vat and began the ritual wine-making. The rest of the crew, similarly garbed, soon joined her.

The wine reportedly was terrible. But the Stomp left its cultural mark–when not used for making wine, the grape vat doubled as the original California hot tub.

I didn’t know a thing about the Mountain Drive Colony until I saw a listing for the cottage on my last visit to Santa Barbara. The asking price was $1.19 million–which raised eyebrows even in Santa Barbara. You know the saying: Location, location, location. After all, Oprah paid $50 million for her slightly larger estate nearby. The cottage–hot tub included–is no longer on the market.

Not that I could afford it, but I just know there is magic behind that blue door.

Pete Seeger dies…

 Pete Seeger singing at the  RamDas Foundation

He lived a simple life, devoted to values & vision

Susan Caba
Resale Evangelista

I was driving up the Pacific Coast Highway yesterday, listening to the Byrds’ cover of Turn, Turn, Turn, on my way to my mother’s house in Santa Barbara. The music and my destination coalesced into high school memories–specifically, a school assembly discussing anti-Vietnam War protests.  Earlier in the week, a rioting crowd of protestors in the neighboring college community of Isla Vista had burned down the Bank of America.

Folk singer Pete Seeger wrote Turn, Turn, Turn and it, along Seeger’s Where Have All The Flowers Gone, became anthems of the anti-war movement. Hearing them as I drove, I had flashbacks of the era–a neighbor’s son who served in Vietnam; the physician I worked for part-time, who specialized in getting draftees medical deferments; the long hair, shredded jeans and handmade leather sandals apparent everywhere in I.V.; the wafting smell of marijuana at a Joan Baez concert on a sunny afternoon.

Seeger, who died Monday at age 94, lived the epitome of a simple life. By that, I mean he spent a lifetime working toward his vision of a peaceful world, even if it meant making progress–as he put it–“one teaspoon at a time.” Seeger focused his considerable talents toward that goal for most of his seven-decade career.

He didn’t create a line of clothing for Macy’s. As far as I know, he only had the log house in upstate New York–no vacations in the south of France or exotic islands. He didn’t maintain a garage filled with expensive cars. Did he flash “bling?” You gotta be kidding!

Seeger promoted his causes, not himself. His weapons were a five-string banjo, a 12-string guitar and songs that became anthems for civil rights, labor rights, environmental causes and, above all, world peace.  He refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee about his political beliefs, and was blacklisted for 17 years. Still, he stuck with his values and his belief in the power of song during turbulent times.

Roger McGuinn, the Byrds’ lead singer and a Seeger protegé, made an interesting observation about those times and those songs. He pointed out, in a radio interview about Seeger’s influence, that there was no Twitter then, no Facebook. Those have become the tools of mass political communication with the power to rouse rebellion. That’s true.

Even so, Seeger’s songs still have the power to make us sing along. It doesn’t matter if you’re singing the right note, he said, “as long as you’re singing it.”

So here are the lyrics to Turn, Turn, Turn, as well as a video of Seeger performing the song. Feel free to sing along:

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)
There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)
And a time for every purpose, under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late

High heels and bare feet–equally lethal?

Jone Bosworth spotted this sign, posted at the Santa Barbara Harbor, and sent it in after reading my post on getting rid of my highest high-heels. Is this a philosophical point of view, that high heels and bare feet are both dangerous? Or is it merely practical advice? Anyone have a theory regarding how they relate and in what way they are dangerous? Use your imagination and let me know what you think, in words, pictures or a combination of both. Don’t hold back, let your imagination run wild!