Our second-closest neighbours, John and MC left yesterday for Ontario and the ongoing obligations that are part of having a business and primary residence to care for.  They have gone back to the ‘normal’ work they have rather than the Herculean efforts they undertake here to finish the cabin they started two years ago.  Cabin construction is vacation time for them.  And I marvel.  These guys are older than us and even less skilled but they are keen as hell to be here and, seemingly, getting keener with each visit.  That part I understand.  It is the ‘going back’ part that mystifies me.

Neither Sally nor I can even imagine going back to anywhere but here and going back to ‘conventional’ work is so far out of the picture, we just laugh at the thought.  ‘Course, we could use the money but, really, is it worth it?  We have concluded that it isn’t.  Is it even possible?  Helping us in this country-life delusion is the obvious: we are also clearly unemployable.  Aside from age, rusty skills and frequent short term memory loss, there is a deep, deep sense of rejection for all that normal work assumes as normal. I am pretty sure we can’t do it anymore.

Would I do as I was told? I don’t think so.  I was never very good at that at the best of times.  Would Sally?  Absolutely not!  Would we spend time doing the stupid wastes-of-time that all jobs require?  Not a chance.  Would we be in on time?  Nope.  Might not even show up.  Would we care in any way?  Not bloody likely.  Would ‘walking the dogs’ come first?  For Sally, for sure (for me, not so much.  I might go to work).  And our daily rate schedule would blow company budgets.  I don’t think I would get out of bed for less than $500 a day and, even at that, I might return now and then for a quick nap.  This is not a good work ethic even by Mexican standards.  I think our careers are over.

Don’t get me wrong…….we work.  Hard, sometimes.  And we want to work.  It is just that we want to work at our pace and at our interests.  We want to do ‘good work’ rather than ‘pay-the-bills’ work and it has to be interesting and include learning and personal growth and being Green and – well, just a helluva lot of qualifiers that make a normal job impossible to consider.  I’d travel and do speaking engagements (kinda need a best selling book first, tho, don’t you think?).  I’d travel and write about fancy all-inclusive resorts.  I’d deliver a nice RV to some place South (preferably leaving in early January?).  Hosting Chinese students is fascinating.  So is raising a wind turbine.  And, believe it or not, so is growing a garden.  But, as you can see, it is all personal, individual and unconventional work that has no direct appeal to anyone other than us that appeals to us the most.

We are staggeringly fortunate just to be able to think this way, let alone do it this way.   

This blog is a good example.  I am interested in sharing our lives and the reward will be – if I keep it up – a body of work that describes what we have been doing in more detail than I could do if I waited to write it a year from now in one go.   But who wants that, anyway?  A few, maybe?  Sal?  Of course, it may suck.  Just a daily journal of non-events in an old man’s life (I really should pick up the tempo some, don’t you think?) but, on the other hand, it is personal and descriptive of that same old man’s life.  And Sally’s.  So there may be something there.  Eventually.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, today is the day we put up the highest tower section.  Today is also the day, John and MC return to the fast-paced rat race and rejoin the excited throngs of millions chasing their tails.  But, for us, today is just same ol’ same ol’ –  another day in paradise.