The naked truth in a clothed world.

I have been feeling out of sorts lately, mainly due to the Mercury retrograde, but also due to the circumstances of my life right now. I am enrolled in classes at the University here. The only reason I’m in school right now is because it pleases my family. Last March I went to a music festival in Ft. Lauderdale and picked up two kids my age who were rainbow family. It was my first exposure to the rainbow family, the first time I ever heard about it, and it amazed me that I hadn’t heard of them before as I’ve been hanging around hippies and nomads my entire life- due to my father being a deadhead, listening to jam bands and hanging out on Siesta key. Their names were Wolf and Star. Wolff was a probably 7 feet tall- a giant with a guitar on his back and a big worn out backpack. Star was tiny, maybe 5 feet tall, with short blond dreadlocks with glass beads strewn on them. They smelled pretty bad- like they’d been camping out for weeks, but they had a lot of stories. They had hitchhiked to Florida all the way from Portland, Oregon–and after hearing about the city, I decided I needed to get there somehow.

I was still partially dependent on my parents, working as a barista at a coffee house and taking 18 credit hours in college when I decided it was imperative that I get to Portland as soon as possible no matter what. The only way that I could get out there was through a program at the university I attended that gave a small chance that I could attend a school in Portland for an exchange period at the same price of tuition as the school in Florida. It was perfect. I applied for the program, got all my letters of recommendation, kept my GPA up (I had a 3.97 at the end of the quarter) and waited. At the beginning of May, I got my acceptance letter from the University I’m attending now in Portland. 2 weeks later I started dancing, my plan of escape.

I am now 100% financially independent except for a portion of my tuition. I will be 100% independent if I don’t go to school. It’s really killing me. I don’t want to be in school right now, I want to be out experiencing life, traveling, not having plans, not being stressed, not having deadlines, jumping on trains and planes and buses, playing music with my boyfriend all around the world. Oh yeah and the ironic thing– my boyfriend is rainbow family, and most likely knows the kids I picked up and drove across the state. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason I’m in Portland was not to attend school- it was to meet important people and start a journey. The school part was just the loophole that allowed me to come here, and now that I’m here, I don’t need it anymore.

I’ve been thinking, and it almost seems as if attending University is futile at this point. I have never followed the rules. I have never flowed smoothly along with society. Attending a university after graduating high school is mainstream society’s norm. Getting a degree that has little to do with your future career is society’s norm. I know that whatever I end up doing for a living will be hard, weird, entrepreneurial, revolutionary journey– because I make my own rules. My jobs in the past have been pretty dull, besides the last two that are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum :cashier, retail, waitress, barista, environmental canvasser, daycare worker, stripper.

The reason for all this re-thinking is the re-trograde for sure, but also because I just read an amazing book. It’s called “Radical Simplicity” by Dan Price. The man flunked out of college, took a bunch of photographs for a magazine, started his own zine called “The Moonlight Chronicles”, rode a tricycle across the country, had 2 children, married his high school sweetheart, wrote a bunch of books and makes very enviable simple dwellings in nature. His book was called the Walden of our generation, and while I think that’s a very lofty title to aspire to, his life is definitely admirable. He currently lives in an underground dwelling like a hobbit hole, and has in the past lived in tents, tipis, cabins, and various other semi-permanent outdoor dwellings. He also tells you how to build a sweatlodge and explains how he adds sources of electricity and heat to his dwellings.

After reading his book, I am very very inspired to either a) buy a bus/van and live in it b) make a tipi and live in it c) build a treehouse and live in it. Or, a combination of all three. A bus can be a home while traveling, a tipi is portable and can be permanent, and a treehouse- would be heaven. I went to Powells the other day for FOUR hours straight and went through a stack of books 2 feet high on how to build treehouses and set up alternative energy sources. I think the ultimate alternative dwelling would be a treehouse that utilized photovoltaic panels up on the canopy that wired down the trunk of the tree and into the house, as well as collected water up near the canopy and used gravity to lead it down to the house for bathing and washing. For heating a treehouse… that would be tricky, but i think the best choice would be a wood stove that was installed correctly, in combination with solar heating.

Something like this, with rope bridges connecting a bunch of small treehouses is what I have in mind :

So.. I’m going to make it happen. It would be cool to build a treehouse village in India, or a forest in Ireland-anywhere really green and not too cold.