Community day takes many forms.

I went up to the bunkhouse to help with the ceiling installation but my assistance wasn’t needed.  Plenty of people there.  An abundance of labour.  Which is good.

So, I left.  Headed over to see a neighbour.

I had bought a mickey of rye for a guy who lives alone and, although, it was before noon, I thought I may as well drop it off.  You know?  Community day and all?

So, I got there, knocked on the door, gave up the Wiser’s Deluxe and sat down for a cup of tea.  I don’t drink in the day time as a rule and, if I ever do, it is never Rye whiskey.  That was about 11:00 am.  We had just about finished the bottle before I remembered the tuna salad sandwiches I had brought along for the so-called working part of that day.  And so we washed down the last ounce or two of Rye with tuna and a bran muffin.

It wasn’t all bad.  I managed to get a few rants out of my system.  And we had not just a few laughs as well.   And he felt warmed up by the visit and the whiskey.  Which was a nice change since he had run out of firewood a week ago and hasn’t had much heat on in his place for awhile.  Nuthin’ like drinkin’ rye in a cold damp cabin in the forest to be a real Canadian, eh?

I was a bit late in picking up Sal who had been working at the Post office.  “First time in forty years you have been late!”, she said, grinning. 

“How late am I?”

“Only about ten minutes, sweetie.  But it is not like you.  Been busy?”

“Well, yeah.  You know, Community day!”

Cashless Society blog was brought to you by a rainy day.  I cannot indulge my grinding and fibreglassing habit in the rain so I tend towards thoughts inner and dark.  Can’t help myself.  Especially after reading Vulture’s Picnic by Greg Palast.

Read that book and redefine your meaning of conspiracy, evil and even Public Broadcasting.  Sheesh!

And, on a slightly related but irrelevant tangent: the robo-call scandal is done, I am afraid.  Dead in the water.  Over.  Kaput.  It has fallen off the media’s radar screen already and this with over 4 years left in the government’s mandate! By the time we can do anything about it, we’ll have forgotten everything.

Hands up all who remember Plutonic Power and Basi-Virk’s $6 million dollar legal bill?  Sid?  Is that you with your hand up back there?

I can’t do a rant today.  Sorry.  I know how disappointing that must be.  Where’s the passion?”  I did a light piece on receptionsists for balance but that is the best I can do. 

I will say this: I am 64 and I’ve been around more than just a few blocks.  I attended 13 different schools before I graduated because – well, my family was less stable than migrant farm workers, that’s why.  Honestly, Bedouin and Romanian gypsy’s are rooted by comparison.

I also worked with the addicted and the delinquent, the insane and the demented (not to mention some of the clients and patients we had there!). 

I have also worked with refugees and immigrants and I have traveled a lot.  You’d think I would know evil when I saw it.  Or, at the very least, I’d know bad.  You know?  The bad guys?

Well, it seems I don’t.  I’ve been naive.  Sheltered somehow.  I had no idea what bad was.  I have no idea what evil is.  To know that kind of thing you have to look deep into the history of BIG OIL.  They are not only dirty and slimey but they purposefully violate laws, kill people and cultures and destroy the environment.  UNNECESSARILY!  NOT by accident or carelessness but on purpose!  BIG OIL makes BIG TOBACCO look saintly.  Read Vulture’s Picnic.

Then let me know if you can muster any passion.

People are pretty funny. I am currently being amused by receptionists although, to be fair, I have always been amused by receptionists.  Different reasons for different receptionists, of course, but basically I just ‘like ém’.

“Mr. Cox, where is this address?”

“You wanna come over?”

“No!  No, thank you.  It is just that I have never even heard of this place.  Where is it?”

“Remote island.  Up the coast.  Ferries, logging roads, small boat.  You know, isolated, lonely, dangerous.  Adventure.  Bears.  Wolves.  Killing deer to survive?”

“Wow, really?  You live in the forest?” 

“Yep.  The truth is that it is a bit more civilized than I just made out.  Got satellite internet.  Fridge and stove.  Telephone. There are wolves, though.  And bears.  But I buy groceries at Save-On.  So, it is not quite wild, wild, wild.  And I am sorry, but I got a wife already.”    

“Wha…?  Well, that is good for you.  I am sure!  She must be some woman!  That kind of lifestyle is pretty neat, I guess.  My boyfriend would like that but me, I like going to restaurants, shopping and my Pilates class and stuff.  That sounds too rough for me.  Now…….can you come in next week at 9:00 am?”

“Well, I can.  If I have to.  But you see……..I live remote.  Takes four hours just to get to town.  It works best for me if I can get an appointment around noon.  Can we do that?”

“Oh, gee.  The doctor has lunch at noon.  How about later in the day at around four?  I can fit you in at 4:10 on the 17th?  The examination takes an hour and a half.  You’ll be the last patient.”

“Well, I can do that, if it is all you have.  But you see, I live remote and I need the same four hours to get back home.  Could I see the doctor after she has lunch?  I don’t care how far in the future we have to go to get a 1:00 o’clock appointment but that will work best for me if possible?” 

“Wow!  How do you get anything done?”

“That is why I have a wife!  Oh, relax!  I am only kidding.  Mostly.  The key is not to try to get too much done.  We can do stuff as we come and we can do stuff as we go but shopping is about all.  No restaurants.  No visiting.  No browsing. 

“Or I can stay over.  But it is best for us to minimize our expectations and maximize our pace.  We try to hit the ground running, ya know?  Summertime is better.  We can get home later.  But the window of safe travel in the winter is small.  We try to get home before dark.  In a small boat, getting home in the dark is just tempting fate.  Plus we have dogs to feed.”

“Ooh!  Doggies!  I love dogs.  What kind of dogs………?” 

Receptionists.  What’s not to like?

Sweden is almost cashless.  Meaning: their system of making payments, purchases and paying bills is all done electronically now.  Money changing hands is almost ‘not done’ there at all anymore and, further, there are some things money simply cannot buy in Sweden.  Literally.  You have to use a card or something ‘electronic’ to make those transactions.

Of course, Sweden hasn’t erased all real money as yet.  They don’t figure to be truly cashless for another decade or so.  But, by then….well, all your transactions in Sweden will be electronic.  Read: monitored.

We’re headed in the same direction.

Cashless societies don’t have bank robberies.  And that is a good thing.  Right?  Well, I suppose it is good thing for the bank.  That much is true.  But going ‘cashless’ is also good for the bank in other ways.  They get to rob, now.  The banks charge transaction fees and we transact all day long.  Visa takes a cut of between 2.5 and 5% of any purchase they handle.  So banks get to rob Bonnie and Clyde now and they get to ‘charge’ all the consumers just a little extra.  What is not to like?

‘Course, they also get to track you. And what can you do about that – not spend? 

“But, who in their right minds wants to track me?”

I’m with you on that one.  Tracking me is like counting sheep.  But, the key phrase in that question is ‘in their right minds’. There may be plenty of folks not-so-much in their right mind that want to track you or me.  Seems identity theft and a few other self-serving things might come up for them.  I dunno.  Call me crazy.

Still, I am not so worried.  I am confused, though.  But not so worried.  You see, they already track me.  They know my spending patterns and, if I should deviate from the norm, they cancel my card.  Been there.  Done that.

But I don’t do anything wrong.  So, how can I suffer?  How could all of my personal information in the hands of the wrong people do me any harm?  Wouldn’t the government ensure my safety and confidentiality?  (from everyone but them, I guess).  I think so.  Eventually.  Someday.  Maybe.

And do I have to fear my own government?

And that is where the confusion starts for me.  You see, I do fear them.  It is the main reason I pay my taxes.  I fear the consequences if I don’t.  I drive the speed limit even when I am in a hurry because, well, I fear the consequences if I get caught.  I have to admit that fearing the government is pretty much in-bred in me.  Have you seen what a taser or tear gas can do when you don’t do as they say?

When they yell at you for no reason to ‘get on the ground!  Get on the ground now!’  Try standing up straight instead and yelling God is Great!

Listen up: if you are olive-to-dark skinned?  Black hair?  Don’t try that stunt.  Just get on the ground.  Really.  And forget that God is great for a few minutes.  Trust me on this.

But let’s leave that kind of sick paranoia aside for a minute.  So what if Big Bad Brother has more ways to bully me with the universal application of transaction monitoring?  I mean, it is not like I am safe from them now, am I?  They got CCTV, too.  So what if it gets a bit worse?  Waddya gonna do?

I don’t know.  Honestly.  But I will tell you this: I use cash a lot more now.  It seems like a tiny and silly way to rebel but I am using cash for no other reason than to retain the option.

And doing so keeps my whereabouts vague. Ya never know….?

It used to be that I ‘Visa’d’ my way everywhere.  Now?  I use it only for gasoline and airline tickets.

I have to keep Visa for that.  I may have to make a run for it someday.

……and it springs eternal.  Kinda like the leaks in Sal’s boat.

We did a good job yesterday.  Ground out the Ritz cracker and went about glassing up that pesky little spot.  I wasn’t hoping things would be good.  I was sure that they would.  While I was doing that, Sal was ‘waxing and polishing’ the hull (waxing and polishing is closely associated with cleaning.  They’re like cousins in the obsessive-compulsive world of perfectionists). Things were starting to look good.

“Hey!  Look here.  I have a drip of water here.  How is that possible?”

I took a close look and, sure enough, the hull seemed to be weeping a bit.  I poked it.  It burst into tears.  Not good.

“Looks like we got ourselves some kind of barely visible leak, sweetie.  I am gonna have to grind that area out and see what’s going on.”

“Noooohhhh………..I just waxed there!  Can’t we just let it go, kinda?  I mean, is it really bad or just a little bad?”

I picked up the grinder and took a few passes.  The hull (all of 30 years old) was remarkably thin at that location and it took nothing to cut through.  Under the skin was wet foam.  No question: we had a leak there and it was likely due to a simple manufacturing defect decades ago.  The skin was just too thin.  And so the cha-cha-cha continued.

I confidently assured her that it was a fluke.  “Don’t worry, this sort of thing doesn’t generally happen in Whalers, sweetie.  They are usually very heavily laid up.  This was just an anomaly.”

“Geez”, she said.  “I guess I better tell you about that second little drip, too, then eh?”

On the other side, there was also a little teardrop or two.  And a few extra began to flow from me, too.  Sob.  I ground out that next little weak spot, too.  Wet foam again.  And so a third patch is also now underway. Cha cha cha.

We quit working just after 5:00 pm to the extreme consternation of the dogs.  They are supposed to be fed at 5:00 and, if we are on site and near the kitchen, they don’t tolerate any tardiness lightly. There was a lot of whimpering and leaping about. So, we fed the dogs, had a glass of wine and contemplated our naval…er…navy.

“Good thing you have 15 hp on that boat instead of 10.  At this rate, you’ll need the extra five to compensate for all the extra water you are carrying.”

We calculated that, with the foam occupying most of the space between the double hulls (required on Whaler and oil tanker construction but not BC ferries) Sal’s boat might carry an extra five gallons of water.  50 pounds.  Not good but still functional.  For a while, anyway.

All of this got me thinking………….where do old boats go to die?

Mankind has been building boats for eons.  Why aren’t we up to our knees in old hulks?  Yes, I know a bunch sink.  And the steel ones get cut-up and recycled.  But that still leaves a lot of wood, fibreglass and other types of boats.  Where are they?

We concluded that they are in backyards.

So, the push is on.  We gotta get this puppy back in the water or else it just may expire on the spot.  It makes no sense to have this unfounded fear, I know.  We should have control over these inanimate things.  ‘Specially when they become inanimate, as in ‘d-i-e’.  Right?  But, obviously, we don’t.   Do we?  There is no denying the ubiquity of boats in backyards.

‘They’re like everywhere, man!’

Face it.  Some things are out of our control.  Death, taxes, boats-in-backyards.  It is because of such things that we have to rely so heavily on hope.

You know the one…?  Two steps forward, one step back?  Like the cha-cha-cha only instead of music, it is the work-at-hand?

Sal and I went down on a beautiful day yesterday (about 8 degrees C) and went to work on patching the hole in her boat.  We ground, we sanded and we did what one is supposed to do in preparation for a f’glass repair.  We think.

“You ever done fibreglass repairs before?” she asked.

I’m not stupid.  I know what that question really means in fem-speak.  It means; íf you haven’t ever done it before and I haven’t ever done it before, I am taking over.  And furthermore, the first step is to stop everything and go look up the instructions on the Internet.

This question is very similar to the driving-in-an-unfamiliar-place question, “Do you know how to get there?  Do you have the directions?  Do you have a map?”

Like most guys, I drive by ‘feel’.  And fiberglassing is exactly the same.

“Yeah.  ‘Course I done it before.  Been there lots of times.  Plenty.” (adding ‘plenty’ was a verbal mistake.  I should have stayed with a simple, terse “Yes”.  She senses weakness if I use too many words)

“Yeah, right!  Like when?”

“Well there was a time long ago – long before I met you – when an old girlfriend and I did some fiberglassing.”

“That’s not true!  You and I discovered boats after we had been together.  You didn’t know the pointy end from the blunt one back then.”

This was not going well.  She was getting stronger.  I could see the next few hours slipping away getting advice from HOW-TO sites on the net.

“Well, there was that time I watched Bill S make his deck box.  And I helped him do it.”

“Doing what?  Cracking stupid jokes?”

“Well, it was pretty funny.  You shoulda been there.  Everything got stuck.  Ha ha.  But then there was the time Brian and I did the old boat decks”. 

“What did you do?”

“Lots.  Really.  I did lots.”

“OK, then. What do we do next?”

That conversational change of pace almost tripped me up but I am pretty quick on my feet with fem-speak and I had a fall-back position, a fail-safe thought-in-waiting at my fingertips.  It is my go-to answer when she gets me off-balance like that.  “Well, we start by cleaning.  Gotta clean away all the dust.  Then we gotta clean it some more.  And then again with xylene and do that a whole bunch.  Clean, clean, clean.”

Sal’s a sucker for the cleaning, fall-back tactic.  Deep down she is a clean-up-after-every-step-and-sometimes-in-the-middle-of-the-step kind of person.  When in doubt about what to do next, I just say ‘we hafta clean’ and that usually buys me enough time to make up the next step.

So, Sally cleaned and wiped and cleaned and wiped while I, in the meantime, read up on the mix ratios of resin to catalyst.  I also read:  Don’t do it if the temperature is less than 10 degrees C.  But we were too far into it to bother with that right now!

The guys who wrote those instructions are geniuses.  Seems I was to use 5 ml or 15 drops per ounce.  Think about that!  One measurement is in metric (milliliters) and the other is in Imperial (oz).  And the third is in ‘drops’ for Gawd’s sake!  I figured to do 60 drops in four ounces and asked Sal to check it.  I handed her the bottle.

She stared at it.  And then stared at it some more.  I helped with the math. I said, “60 drops in four ounces.  Waddya think?”

“Not using milliliters?

“Too hard to measure 5 mls.  Like that is just 60 drops, ya know?  Waddya use?  A mini-thimble? 

“You sure this is right?”

“That is the way I read it.  You read it any different?”

“No.”

“Ok.  Let’s do this thing!”

And so we did.  But the stuff ‘kicked off’ pretty quick.  Say, in under an hour or so.  So much for the temperature restrictions.  Made me think maybe 30 drops would have been enough.  So that is what I’ll try tomorrow when we do it again.

That’s right – do it again!  You see, we somehow let a bubble get trapped in the goo and so I will have an air pocket about the size of a Ritz cracker to grind out when it is set up enough.  And then I’ll do that part again.

Two steps forward, one step back.  I hope.

……….now I am looking for a chance to work.

It’s embarrassing.  It really is.  Sal’s boat is still high and dry.  Except when it rains but then it is still too high at the very least.  I have got to get on those repairs.  I really do.  It’s been over a week now and Sally is getting more and more comfortable driving my boat. And it just doesn’t feel right, ya know?  Sorta like your wife driving your truck all the time?  Or, if you’re a cowboy, riding your horse?  Just ain’t right.

And it’s not my fault.  Not really.  We’ve been busy.  Town days, guests, community workshop days.  And any days that were not otherwise occupied were pouring with rain.  There just hasn’t been a decent ‘repair’ window.  I blame the weather.

“Geez, Dave, waddya talkin’?  You guys are retired.  You got nothin’ to do all day.  You jus’ sit around and write your blog, right?”

Well, it might seem like that but, honest, we are busy.  I swear.  OK, I don’t get up early.  I admit that.  But I never did.  I used to only apply for jobs that did not require early attendance.  I am not a morning person, OK?

And, of course, you can’t do fibreglass boat repairs when it is dark.  Right?  So, right there we have some major limits on the potential opportunity for working.  I am just a work-victim frustrated-by-circumstances…….like.

Still, that leaves a good six-hour window on a nice day and, so far, we just haven’t managed to find it.  But we will.  It will get done.  You’ll see.

I hope.

But the signs aren’t good.

Today was a great day.  And I was ready to go.  But Sal went up to do another ‘spontaneous’ community work day and I need her hands to help me when I am doing well, anything, really.  Anyway, she wasn’t there for the planned boat repairs.  So, I didn’t do it.  Worse, there were a bunch of vegetables and junk all over the kitchen and I knew what her plans were and so I decided to prepare the dinner.  I made a stew.

I think.  Not sure.  We’ll know later.  It smells OK.  But cooking is not one of my strengths.  We’ll see.

Look!  There are people who build boats.  And there are people who sail boats.  They are rarely the same people.  Builders and users.  That is the way it is.  And it is the same way with cookin’, isn’t it?  Only some cook.  Most eat.  I am in the latter group.  It’s what we like to call a division of labour.  She cooks.  I eat.  We’re both happy.  Mind your own business!

But – just so you know – once in awhile I cook.  You know, like the sensitive, non-sexist, sweetheart I am?  Down deep.  I help out.  I feed the dogs.  I BBQ steaks.  I help with the pizza.  I am pretty good at Sushi.  And, well…………popcorn……..and I pour the wine………

Mind your own business!

But that is what I am writing about, actually.  I am not minding my own damn business.  I spent a couple of hours cooking, for Gawds sake!  And Sal was doing construction!  The world has gone mad!

How is that boat ever going to get done if everyone has gone mad?

Epilogue: Sal came home and ‘messed’ with the stew to ‘fix it up’ a bit.  Tasted OK.  “You did good, sweetie.  Thank you.  In future, tho, you don’t have to do this, ya know?  Really.  Honest.  Thanks a lot, tho.  But, like, it is OK to stay out of the kitchen, OK?  Please?”

I am taking those comments in a positive way.  I think I have been told to relax.

Shakespeare wrote.  He’s from Gambia.  Wants to Woof (volunteer).  T’is the season.

“I want to come help……….. and……..I have five lovely children.”

Sheesh.  I don’t think we can accommodate six people even if five of them are lovely.

Plus kids – if any are under 6 – tend to tip over and, with our slopes, they also tend to keep on rolling and/or sliding after the initial tipping.  Some roll all the way to the sea.  This is not a good thing.  Parents get upset.  Kids usually bounce back up.  But not always.  Parents never do.

Truth is, this is not a good place for little kids.  Portuguese Water dogs, goats, athletes, acrobats and yoga practitioners are best.  Heavy drinkers, little kids, people with poor balance or walking aids……not so good.  We are definitely not wheel-chair friendly.

Well, we are friendly just not very accommodating.

Up until a couple of years ago the only access to our place from the dock was a heavy rope slung over a steep (but short) cliff and the person needing to get to our place had to pull themselves up hand over hand.  More than a few older folks had my shoulder jammed under their rump as they struggled to get up with me providing that little extra push.

Old, bumply-cheeked rumps plunked heavily on my shoulder while I also climb-lifted me and their luggage up about ten feet straight up.  Less than enchanting.  So, I eventually built stairs.  Necessity.  Mother.  Invention.

The thing with Woofers is that they all need something.  And that is only fair.  We all do.  Sometimes it is just vegetarian meals.  Sometimes it is as simple as Internet.  Usually it is something made known to us only after the Woofer has arrived.  “Oh, you are allergic to dairy?” “Only eat gluten-free?” “Hate sea food, eh?”

Often, tho, the Woofer is ‘accepting of whatever is going down’ excepting, sometimes, the actual work.  They usually have a good attitude (the continental French are sometimes a little too far out of their natural element, tho) but it is not uncommon to have to teach a young man or woman how a hammer works.  Virtually everyone needs to learn how an axe works.  Well, a splitting maul, anyway.  We don’t trust them with axes.  Too sharp.

Chainsaw?  Power winch?  Rock-drill?  Not a chance.  Maybe the small outboard.  Someday.  Maybe.

I am not kidding.  Shovels are a mystery tool to some.  I’d say only the wheelbarrow is a concept readily grasped by all.  How the hell these people got from their home country all the way to our island is a question I often ponder after seeing them try to work the garden hose or use a screwdriver.

“So, Francine….?  What did you do in France?  You know?  Before coming here?”

“Oooooh………….ah teaze de onglais, eh?  Ah am a On-glaize teazer fo zen ‘eers. eh?” 

“Wow!  Interesting.  What is the name for that utensil in French?”

“Ah ‘ave nezer zeen zat tsing bee-fore.  Wha di zat?”

“We call it a shovel.”

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love the Woofers.  I really do.  They just add to the experience of being out here and they are usually very grateful for the hospitality, the activities and of the surroundings we offer.  It is good.  All good.

But it is not a great deal as such.  True, the labour is free.  But only four hours a day and, typically, it is unskilled in the extreme.  The best woofers are those who can cook, clean and are willing to do the dishes.  That actually helps a great deal. If I have to explain how a nail-puller works, I may as well do it myself.  Plus I limit any blood loss to my own.

Last year we had a lovely woofer from Switzerland and she was great.  She couldn’t do anything but she was a keen cleaner.  She was excited to help Sal spring clean.  We all washed and scrubbed and vacuumed every surface and our place was Swiss-clean after a week.  She has an open invitation to return anytime.

I am gonna have to disappoint Shakespeare, I am afraid.  Right now the house is pretty clean and the only stuff I have planned is heavy, sharp and has motors involved.  This ain’t BCIT, ya know.

Most of the toy-making workshop has now been moved to the Q-hut.  We have one more trip to finish relocating the last of it but all the tools are here as well as most of the bits and pieces.  Plus a number of good toy samples with which to compare our first efforts.  We are pretty much through the big step ONE. Call this the heavy-lifting stage.

I, for one, am glad that stage is over.

Step two is putting it all together.  That means finishing the electrical work, building shelves, setting up the vacuum and air-filter system, attaching bench-based machines, sorting and inventory.  You know……..the usual kind of thing to get everything operational.  Call this the order-from-chaos stage.

But we have to start at chaos, of course.

“Where should I put this?” “In the little room.” “But there’s garbage still there.” “Take the garbage out!” “To where?” “I dunno.” “I am hungry, anyway.  Let’s have some lunch.” “What’s that machine do?” “I dunno.” “But you are the experienced wood-work guy here!?”  “Yeah. True. But the bar is set pretty low and I don’t know what that is.  So, sue me. Looks like a calibrating thingy.  Kinda.”

And on and on.  All day.  But as that background noise continues to drone, things slowly get put away and a few decisions are made.  We are progressing.  Kinda.

“That shouldn’t go there!” “Why not?” “It just shouldn’t.  I like my drill presses in corners.” “OK.  Sounds fine to me but, ya know, we have to make sure we don’t think of this as our own personal shop.  It is a community shop, remember.  Can’t be done as if it belongs to just a few of us.  You know, emphasis on community workshop?” “Does that mean you want the drill press somewhere else?” “No.  Just sayin’.” “Then put it in the damn corner for now, OK?”

It is clear that we are going to have to establish some kind of order but order is anathema to us.  No one likes order.  ‘Course, we don’t like chaos, either.  What we like is ‘natural, common sense’.  The problem is that common sense isn’t common.  Or, it seems, natural.  It is also, at best, subjective and, when exercised in a group of naturally different and uncommon people, very much inclined to recreating chaos.

“So am I the only one eating lunch or what?”

We have decided to start by building shelves for storage and small tools.  That, most assuredly, cannot be done by committee.  So one of us will build a set of shelves.  Whoever that is.  And he will likely start as soon as the power is hooked up and we can use the saw.  Which, by the way, is packed away right at the moment but which we will get to.  Soon.  I think.  And whoever is going to work on the power will get to it as soon as…….well…..as soon as we have lunch. 

Tempers heated up yesterday at the community-building site.  We were working on the kitchen extension.  It is coming along nicely.   But a couple of personalities flared.  Sparks flew.  It was the pressure, I think.  As little of it as there was, it was a bit too much.

We are trying to get things done, you see.  We have a sense of urgency (for us).  Therefore we have pressure.

I have come to learn that pressure is relative and, further, one can learn to accept greater and greater pressure as one’s career or personal issues escalate.  What I didn’t know was that, once that pressure eases and things return to a personal and natural equilibrium (different for each of us) one’s ability to ‘kick it up a notch’ weakens.  Let me explain:

I won’t claim to have endured much pressure or any great stresses in my life.  I will claim to thinking that I was, tho.  At the time.  Now and then.  In retrospect, I never had to make life and death decisions, I was never responsible or accountable to thousands.  I didn’t live in the chaos of war.  And, thank God, my wife and kids are fine (perfect in every way, actually).  So, quite probably, my experience with stress and pressure was normal and reasonable for my era and the location in which I lived.

Let’s say, that on a scale of 1 to a hundred, I experienced stress – at the most – at 25 (now and then) and that I likely averaged 15.  Not a lot, but I averaged 15 for decades.  And I handled it well, if I do say so.

But now I live in an environment with an average stress level of 2 or 3.  Five on a busy, frustrating town day.  The needle on the scale barely moves off the ‘equilibrium’ setting most of the time.  I am r-e-l-a-x-e-d.  I am so relaxed that I have noticed that I have to ‘kick it up’ a notch just to drive down Vancouver Island.  That’s right – one of the greatest sources of stress and pressure in my life right now is catching ferries, driving a few hundred kilometers and being somewhere ‘down island’ or in Vancouver on time.  I can feel the stress build, the closer I get to Nanaimo.

After Nanaimo, I start to ‘numb up’ and tense all my neck muscles, ya know?

Imagine that!  Getting close to Nanaimo in traffic is measurably more stressful than anything I live with up here.  Years ago I used to cover that distance easily and do two stressful mediations in one day.  And get home in time for dinner guests!

I can’t nor will I attempt to do that anymore.

And that general declaration is true for many people here, too.  More so, I think for some who have lived even longer more remotely, maybe alone and who have ‘interacted’ with Vancouver and the outside world even less.

As I said, stress and pressure are relative but most of the folks up here live and have lived at lower levels of sensory assault, pace, duties to be performed and, perhaps, most significantly, with lesser personal encounters to manage than urbanites.

Unlike city-folks who have to navigate the sidewalks, parking lots, elevators and offices filled with other people all the time, up here we can spend the whole day on the beach or in the forest.  And many have done so for much of their lives.

So some feel pressure just coming to community workshop day more than others.

Don’t worry.  There is no BIG trouble in paradise.  We’re fine.  It is just an observation.  It is hard NOT to notice, actually.  Not only are we more sensitive to pressure and stress that most urban others would not even notice, we are also, on average, much older than the average age of an urban population.  At the workshop, for instance, there isn’t a soul under 50 and all but a few are over 60.

We are less hardened to the work-with-others scene and we are less capable of learning it at this stage of our lives.

So the typical person coming to ‘cooperate’ and ‘mingle’ and ‘work-in-community’ on Wednesdays is 60 plus, lives alone and has, for the most part, NOT done this teamwork-thing for years.

Furthermore, we have had to be independent.   A lot of things get done because we do them by ourselves.  No one helps.  As a consequence, we have our strengths, we have our weaknesses and we have our own personal ways.

Historically, not a lot had to be compromised or adjusted because of the ways of others.  Personality conflicts could be dealt with simply by avoidance.  We have the space for that.  There was little to force civil interaction.  No one knocked the chips off of shoulders, taught compromise, preached tolerance or threatened paycheques so as to push square personalities into corporate round holes.  People out here don’t have a long history of having to mesh with others.

Don’t get me wrong.  The above is not to suggest that we can’t cooperate or socialize or get along.  We can!  We can mesh!  And we do!  But we also can choose NOT TO whenever we wish.  We can leave before we are ‘compromised’ should we feel that compromise is looming.  We have the freedom to leave. And we exercise that, too.  We can maintain our own sense of personal equilibrium because we are free to do so.

Committing to a community project restricts that freedom.  Only a little.  But it does.  And that can cause a bit of stress.  A project that takes on a schedule and has plans and supervision……well, now we are talking some real pressure.  Nerves get strung.  Some of them tight.

God help the poor soul who comes to the exercise with expectations.  That is failure spelled i-n-e-v-i-t-a-b-l-e.  For things to work best out here, people pair with whom they choose, do the chore that they find interesting and do it at their own pace.  Yes, things will get done differently, but they will get done.

You know what they say…….”If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”