Welcome to the very first Off-Grid Women's Ink. A tantalising taste of the life of those of us who make our own power, live off the grid and sleep under the stars. Happy Valentine's Day. Jane x
Bootings by Jane Campbell
I wave but Alice doesn’t wave back. We have lived on site for years, shared meals, sat in morning meditation for what feels like a decade, so her not waving back now means we must both walk past one another in an ear breaking, mind messing, blood rushing silence of knowing we aren’t going to be friends again, today.
Unable to bear to watch her look through me, like I am empty of meaning, less than an obstacle, I lower my eyes to the ground. My eyes watch her boots come level with mine. My eyes observe how both sets of boots are far more similar than they are different. Both sets are encrusted with mud, both fiercely functional, waterproof, nut-kicker style boots. Boots that say ‘we don’t care what people think about our footwear, what people think women like us should be like'.
Our boots come side by side now like family members, sharing paths as well as treads, treads as well as traits, traits which are busy metaphoring our strength to the outside world: how deliberately innocent we are of that world’s expectations; how coherently we choose to ignore those ridiculous, dangerous expectations and how ignoring them is our sign to each other of how capable we are to choose for ourselves good footwear. We choose safe, strong, easy-to-run in shoes that will take us as far as we need to go. Take us far and away from the people who demean and demand us to be nice girls. These not nice girl shoes stride us through fields, clamber with us over ditches and beyond sexism, beyond patriarchy to here.
Here in this valley miles from that world, is our separate space, out of their way, out of harms way, a place to repair our wounds: our tiny piece of land where we can rest, rest and find our feet again.
Our feet have walked us so far away from the traps and prisons kept ready for us. Our feet are armoured in shoes, in strong, solid, reliable walking kit that we proudly bought and paid for by ourselves. So proud that somehow we have somehow out-prouded one another, used our boots to keep on walking, keep walking even now, away from one another.
Alice now sees me as different from her, different to how I once was to her. I have fallen, in some irreconcilable way, short of her expectations: fallen foul of her invisible tripwire, the tripwire that she uses to keep the bad people away. She has found me guilty of being the ‘other’ that she needs to separate herself from, that category of person no longer entitled to her friendly wave or company.
Alice’s boots disappear out of my line of sight. Boots that once walked towards one another as home now stomp away, leaving me to hold on tightly-silent to my thumping heart. I try hard to stop the gut-wrenching of distress that these petty close encounters bring, I stay brave even in the face of daily ignorings and try not to feel it. I try to pull myself together by my handy bootstraps, to remain a militant believer in Alice’s freedom to walk on by, even in the face of how hard it is for me to bear the loss: the heartbreaking loss of smiles and waves and looks, from the lips and hands and eyes of a long-loved, now greatly missed, even when she is only a few feet away, good friend.
2011
Witchhazel Wildwood is an artist and permaculturist who works with trees and orchards.
Travelling seasons
by
Witchhazel Wildwood
But I’m no sailor
So I got me a trailer
My happiness is found
Living on solid ground
Whatddya want me to do
Paint a watering can on the roof?
If I lived on the canal
You’d call me a character
But living on the road
You think I’m a
Gypsy
Thief
Down and out
Homeless
Trash
Get outta here!
So I am gonna tell you
What this travellin’s all about
I’m gonna make you listen
‘cos I’m no down and out
There’s hedgerows and trees
And wildlife all around me
From the stars and the moon
I know that summer’s coming soon
I smell of woodsmoke and autumn leaves
The birds are singing just for me
And when I waken from the dark
Their morning song fills my heart
In the winter I retire
tend the trees and stoke the fire
I store the harvest of the land
And catch snowflakes in my hand
When the summer sunshine follows
I’m with my friends among the meadows
In the warm circle of darkness
We sing till dawn of lives like this
Coppicing in the Woodland, by Witchhazel Wildwood
I pull the barrow behind me up the slope between the trees. The dense snow compresses under the weight of the wheels, weaving two unsteady tracks. White-topped strings of brambles and wild clematis crowd in on either side, dusting down on me every so often as I pass. Ahead the path curves up further into the wood as I tramp in my thick boots, leaning forward with the weight of the chainsaw and tools, my breath puffing out around me and my padded trousers making the progress slow. Occasionally the barrow jolts on a rock or a dropped branch, my entry into the small woodland breaking the silence of the early morning.
Finally, I arrive in the centre of the wood and park the barrow against one of the ash trees, around 20 years old, the predominant species here. To my left is a copse of small-leafed lime and behind me now the hazel-covered slope I have just passed by on my way up. I stand still for a minute and take in the presence of the trees, connecting with them again, aware they have been dressed in their summer finery and lost it again since I was last here.
The smooth trunks are silvery and straight, yellows and greens banding across the bark. Their bare crowns are silhouetted against the pale wintry sky, the finer branches softly touched with the new morning light. Each year I have taken off a circle of branches below the main crown, as they have emerged, leaving the trunks tall and clean. Occasionally there is a trunk divided with a second competing leader. These are the ones I will coppice low, creating bushier habitat in the understory of the wood and enabling a regular and sustainable source of firewood for my friend Hilary.
I notice the subtle ways the woodland has changed over the last year. The overall feeling is of healthy growth and strong-rooted trunks. The trees have all grown taller, and the canopy is closing overhead. Where there are gaps letting in the light, the brambles have increased around the groups of coppiced stools. The neatly piled logs I left last year have long since been taken down to the house by Hilary’s grandson and the heaps of brash I piled up have sunk down into patches of flattened dead branches, making their journey towards becoming part of the woodland floor.
I turn my attention to my kit, looking over the chainsaw and refilling the fuel and chain oil. I put down my tools by the first tree and press my cheek against the bark, feeling the texture and life of the tree. I think about the purpose of my work and about the whole ecosystem of the woodland. My relationship with this tree tells me that I weave a connection between the human and sylvestrian world. Each tree being part of a greater whole, a complete living woodland cycle which feeds and sustains itself and which I am also a part of. By coppicing a group of trees today, I am gathering firewood to sustain the life of the human guardians of this land but also I am enabling the trees to continue to grow, create more trunks and provide a different layer of habitat for the birds. The woodland has a diversity of native trees and by opening up some areas of light amongst the tall ash, the slower-growing oaks have had a chance to grow stronger and begin to spread out, helping them on their way to taking their space as the top canopy trees.
I check the tightness of the chain before I pull the cord a few times and the saw revs into life, arcing sound across the hillside and startling a blackbird who flies off under the low branches, chiding me. I look up and take stock of the overall balance and lean of the tree, making a decision on which way to fell, always aiming that the tree will fall cleanly and not get hung up on the neighbouring branches. Now that I am ready I finally push my helmet onto my head and take up the saw.
I begin by cleaning away the undergrowth that might trip me up, ensuring there is a safe space in which to move around the tree. Carefully I make the first cuts, leaving a safe hinge that will determine the direction of fall and then finally stepping back as the majestic trunk makes its downward journey. Once it has come safely to the ground, I work to remove the main branches and log them, leaving the smaller brash in a pile away from the path.
A few hours later it is still crisp and cold but the sun has brought further light into the woodland and I stop for a break. I sit on the crunchy snow of the hillside with my flask of tea and some oatcakes, looking at the white slopes across the valley dense with conifers. The beautiful silence settles once more around me and a robin moves in to check my recent activities. On a day like this, I think I have the best job in the world.
Kate Gee lives in this gorgeous off-grid home in France.
The River
by
Kate Gee
From river's source
We drank our fill
With clarity as time stood still
Despite the summer,
Running clear
A trickle there
And pooling near
Her clarity
Her beck and call
Refreshing minds
Sustaining all
The mountains dweller
large and small
For many weeks
The dryness creeps
The river slowing
Quietly weeps.
We drank from her
We took our fill
But in her thirst she dwindles, ill
A storm she calls
To quench my thirst
The clouds they listen
A storm rehearsed
Into the river, at her source
The raindrops swelling
Increase her course
Water gathers the thunder cracks
The river cries
Her joy distracts
Us from our slumber
From our sleep
Her force is heard
Her strength it seeps
It casts aside the rocks and shale
Her cry is hearty
Her tears they swell
And so to her I’m duly drawn
As rain continues after dawn
I hear her crash
I feel her strength
The pools awash
The torrents dense
And all atop the mountains breadth
The river's nourished
Regaining strength
She roars to me I hear her call
And follow to my magic pool
Ferociously her depths increase
White rapids foam
Churning beneath
She screams
Out loud,
To me,
I'm sure
"I’ll never die
There’s always more ......"
Kate Gee
Rooh Star is an enchantress, she makes up songs and chants for us to sing together around the campfire. Rooh has lived off-grid and on the land for many years, building all kinds of living spaces as well as pushing her home on a handcart and being horse-drawn for a long while. http://www.roohstar.net/
I'm gonna do what the animals do
I'm gonna do what the birds and bees do
I'm gonna do what the animals do
I'm gonna build myself a home
Gonna build it with these hands
On this ancient sacred land
Mud, turf, straw, sticks and stone
I'm gonna build myself a home
Ain't gonna get no designer
Ain't gonna hire no builder
Ain't gonna pay for no plumber
I'm gonna build myself a home.
Ain't gonna beg off no banker
ain't gonna build no mansion
gonna align it to the sun
I'm gonna build myself a home
Its gonna have a four-poster bed
A cosy corner for books to be read
A temple space to dance and sing
I'm gonna build myself a home.
I'm gonna do what the animals do
I'm gonna do what the birds and bees do
I'm gonna do what the animals do
I'm gonna build myself a home.
FioxiRose, writer, performance poet and lesbian, living in Kent. Every February she publishes a blog for LGBTQ history month. https://fioxirose.wordpress.com/author/fioxirose/
Brian’s Belt
You’re all of two and three quarters tucked under my big fifty something year old arm and we’re rocking so so gently within the woven Mexican hammock.
You like the scratchy feeling of the hammock rope, quickly touching it and away, giggling each time, the way you do when Eugene, Granma Sue’s kitten licks you with his rough tongue.
The party’s livening up across the field, voices getting louder, freer, more laughter, music notching up as champagne corks pop across the dusky summer evening sky. Your wee head up and down like a yo-yo with every new sound, eyes full of wonder.
We’re rocking rocking trying to lull you to sleep ………Speed bonny boat like a bird on the wing…….your wee self sinking heavier in to my chest …Over the sea to Skye… you stir, having none of it, your big bright eyes, sitting up.
At that very same moment I smell Nanny Jen’s perfume, maybe you did too, and she’s there leaning in on us with her beautiful smile,
- ‘My two favourite girls’, she reaches in to kiss you while stroking my head
- Nanny Fiona’s not a girl!” you correct Nanny Jen…
”Yes she is darling, Nanny Fiona is a girl”
Through your giggles, as you’re convinced Nanny Jen’s playing a little game, we hear ‘ Noooooo, Nanny Fiona’s not a girl. Nanny Fiona’s a boy” …..more giggles that drift ….as your two and three quarter years pick up that maybe it’s not a game.
Nanny Jen winks at me kisses your forehead again, and slips off towards the music and women’s voices.
You roll over on to my chest and up on all fours now. Nose to Nose now.
“ You’re not a girl, Nanny Fiona, You’re a boy!” back to giggling
“What makes you think I’m a boy, darling?” I ask
You smile, pat my face and say “ Your Face”
“ Look, Look Nanny Fiona……it’s Brian’s belt ! “you exclaim, pointing up towards the night sky.
I laugh, you laugh and you hug me round my belly and peeking up at me you say ….
“Your pyjamas”
‘Awwww love you lots like ….smarties”
“No”, you chuckle, “not smarties! ….love you lots… like jelly tots!
“Ahhhhhh that’s right” I say….love you lots “ and you join in “ like jelly tots”
“You’re my Nanny Fiona”
“That’s right my darling, I am, and you’re my beautiful Erin”
Just as sleepiness settles over you, you bob up again
…”I can hear Nanny Jen laughing …”
Fiona Thomson
Ruby Barnett, lived in a canal boat in Oxford UK until she moved to a tiny house in California.
Milestones
I don’t remember the celebrations
Maybe because there weren’t any
My conception … yes, but is it mine?
My birth … yes, but you can’t keep her
My adoption … yes, but she’s doesn’t really look like you
My first appearance in a family photo … yes, but she doesn’t have enough hair for a bow
Yes, but … she asks awkward questions
Yes, but … she sees things differently
Yes, but … she seems so full of rage
My BA graduation … yes, but she’s wearing a men’s suit?
My PhD graduation … yes, but she’s here with a girlfriend
My Admittance to the Law Society … yes, but … yet another girlfriend
And she might now be a lawyer, but not the money-making kind
My marriage … yes, but she’s already pregnant
My mothering … yes, but she talks to that kid like she’s a grown up
That can’t be good
Home ownership … yes, but she’s a single parent.
Then she sold it and bought a narrow boat.
Yes, but you can’t really live like that can you?
Then she gave up everything
Sold the boat
Left her job
and moved to California
You can’t do that?
Didn’t you do that?
Yes, but… in those days it was different.
And so it was
Different times
Different values
Different rules
For me
To remind me that
I come from rotten stock
Saved by adoption
Bonded into enforced gratitude.
tiny, sweet, pretty
for Christmas
which I don’t celebrate
because I’m a Jew
I bought my daughter
a sweet little gold necklace
the kind that’s trendy right now
tiny tiny
tiny interlocking chain
tiny little flat gold circle at the end of it
sweet tiny pretty
and so perfect
look at the tiny gold circle
it’s sweet simple plain
look closer
closer
in tiny writing
on the tiny flat gold circle
it says
FUCK IT
the end
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