Tag Archive for 'Antarctica'

Cyclist Takes Bed Along in Home­made Trailer (Oct, 1940)

I am siked! Stoked! Wack! I don’t know. But I’m pretty pumped. We are at this cross­roads in our life, our econ­omy, etc etc and all that yucky stuff, where we can really do any­thing we want. WHAT HAVE WE GOT TO LOSE? Very lit­tle really.

This pic­ture is maybe the third thing to really get me pumped this year so far. First was read­ing Swim­ming to Antarc­tica by Lynne Cox. I mean, she has to be the coolest most inspir­ing per­son. Like really UP THERE with Gandhi or Dr. King or Obama, you know? She has been swim­ming her whole life. She swam the Bering Strait! No wet­suit, no spe­cial warm­ing noth­ing, she just swam it in her bathing suit. Not only that, she swam from the USA to the Soviet Union DURING THE COLD WAR. How pow­er­ful and inspir­ing is that? Not only was she swim­ming in like 40° water, but she was swim­ming for diplo­macy. And swim­ming the Bering Strait wasn’t her only or biggest accom­plish­ment, she has set all kinds of world records and swam in all kinds of places where no one ever has. In short, read her book! Buy it or get it at the library or bor­row mine. It is very important.

So that was the first thing. The sec­ond thing isn’t as spe­cific. It is a more gen­eral con­cept, or a move­ment really. L has been get­ting pretty deep into the idea of per­ma­cul­ture (to over gen­er­al­ize and state the obvi­ous). She has been an incred­i­ble wealth of knowl­edge and keeps shar­ing these mind-blowing things that peo­ple are doing. Like “…there is this farm run by two ladies near santa cruz and they deliver the CSA on bike.” Whoa! Right? And that is only the tip of the ice­berg. There is a quote that maybe typ­i­fies the sec­ond thing.

…cook­ing, sewing, wash­ing, clean­ing, read­ing, gar­den­ing, fix­ing, writ­ing, draw­ing, craft­ing. woman’s work? per­haps. but i think its bet­ter than lin­ing the pock­ets of some­one else, work­ing for basi­cally noth­ing (for what end or pur­pose), prob­a­bly harm­ing the earth more (we have 30 less envi­ron­ment impact by me not work­ing). this work i do at home ben­e­fits us, not some unknown corp exec and doesnt pol­lute the earth.

We have made the choice to live off of one salary (and my hus­band works only four days a week) and that means that we will always be poor. one car, less “stuff”, noth­ing new for years, but much more hap­pier. that means we get to see and be part of her mile­stones, hear each new word uttered and each new task mas­tered.
– per­ma­cul­ture of family

It is about mak­ing a choice, decid­ing what you want to live for or to work towards. This may be a painfully obvi­ous and juve­nile con­cept, but I feel like I’m real­iz­ing its mean­ing fully for the first time.

The third thing is, as I have stated, this image from the Octo­ber 1940 issue of Pop­u­lar Sci­ence. Chet Jr. trav­eled 1,200 miles in 14 days fund­ing his trip by sell­ing post cards? WHAT? Are you kid­ding? That is very awe­some. AND he made that awe­some trailer to sleep in? Can I do that please? But seri­ously, what is stop­ping us from liv­ing out our dreams and doing very cool things like Chet Jr.?

So for 2009, a year of “change”, I am resolved to really think through what I want to accom­plish in my life and start doing it.