Boats, Cheese Graters, and Buddha
- Ann Cognito
- Feb 4, 2022
- 5 min read
Hello, this is Ann, briefly out of the technical deadish zone and catching up a little bit while I’m temporarily somewhere with better technical connections.
I have to take better care of myself for a bit. I make too many compromises about nutrition, and with my body other ways. It’s all a balancing act, and stuff needs doing. And I was balancing, pretty much anyways, till a great big dump of heavy wet snow went whomping down off the metal roof right into the back of my neck. The 12 hour drop from +3C to feels-like -36C was icing on the cake. I’m already very scratched and dented, and winter wrecks me. It even launches ambush attacks on me!
Every muscle I have spazzed out, all my neck and back and shoulder issues went through the roof (pun not intended, honestly, I didn’t even realize it right away), migraines, and nausea from the whole business. That in turn affects everything else — sleep, thinking, stress, anxiety, and all the etc everythings.
I used to be able to like winter, and I miss that, but this is part of why I tried so hard to get away before winter. Climate and altitude make a world of difference, and I’m quite misplaced in those terms; the only time in my life I’ve felt the absence of pain was in the watery warmth of a subtropical island.
So I stayed hibernating in the tent with Mr Myrtle all day as well a at night… warm bed, clean clear air, meditating with the Earth, listening to the trees and stars… it helps, so much.
I deeply respect the mostly off-grid lifestyle Sandra chooses. She even manages fine when a new home starts revealing all its stupendously awkward shortcomings in the dead of winter, unthawable plumbing system and all. She lives with as much ecological efficiency as she can, and makes a living by bringing old houses back to life in remarkable ways. She even brought one home to life from scratch, building herself a 24’x24′ green tinyhome on a piece of land sufficient for becoming self sustaining. Her whole way of being involves serious natural resource management, from hyper-efficient wood heat and melting snow for water, to advanced composting toilet systems and driving as little as absolutely possible. I have so much respect for living in ways that respect the Earth, and for Sandra. It feels good to live that way, with minimal footprint.
Except the winter-induced parts. The crazy yo-yo weather boinging up and down like it does these days makes trying to heal feel like bailing a boat with a cheese grater – that’s just not going to work out well for boat or grater.
I hibernated and grater-bailed for a week, and then MMS and I came to visit an awfully kind friend for a little while… INDOORS. I made it a good way through winter, but I’m hurt and need to take extra care of Bod; that has to include getting off the weather roller coaster, and not doing some of the work that’s part of living extremely greenly.
Please know, this includes the visit itself being safe, in pandemic terms. I’m also still on the waiting list for a doctor, for tests and whatnot so I can be vaccinated (and taken care of right if something goes wrong, as usually does with me and meds). Meanwhile, I mostly isolate, and do all the safe precautionary things.
While I’m here, I’ll catch up on things that need doing, although not really online socially, because facebook is the only thing I’ve been able to do for a while, and that only frustratingly partly, so I need a break from that. Moreover, there’s a lot of work to do.
Fiona will keep posting pieces of the Walk book, for which I am so grateful. Thank you, Fiona! (hug) I’m trying to figure out how to use Open CPN, and download charts and use them… there’s a pretty long sail plan to get writ! A lot of the to-do list is similarly boat related… plans, emails, looking stuff up, figuring stuff out. There’s also a boatload of sewing to do – cushion covers, curtains, a dodger cover and hopefully a sail cover, maybe even some bags or soft sided bins, as well as mending and whatnot. Because the rest of why I tried so hard to sail south sooner is for the planet, and again, I find parallels between my life and hers.
The Buddha said “the trouble is, you think you have time”.
I don’t. We don’t. The planet doesn’t.
This winter hurts me more because it’s more extreme, because the global ecosystem is having its own spasms and intolerance fits… seizures induced by our trying to force her to compromise too much… the planet is writhing in pain. Life on Earth is in trauma. Pandemics, increasing social and political chaos, economic issues, and the divisiveness being fostered within the masses who could change everything — it’s all part and parcel of the same problem, because the climate crisis is a threat multiplier… it’s all tangled together… with things so volatile, and with all sorts of tipping points zooming by, everything gets more precarious and more tangled.
If I keep compromising and pushing and balancing, clearing snow and doing all I have been, I’ll damage myself too much to help myself. I will not let that happen. And I won’t stay where I’m a liability instead of a help, that’s jut not fair. So, I am doing what is necessary to heal. But I can’t take too long, or get comfortable and stuck, or I’ll run out of time to get this journey to healthier parts of the world, and a healthier world, underway.
If we continue forcing the Earth beyond her limits, the same will happen. We’ll run out of time. We already see collapse happening around us, so many ways. Everything is going to pieces. I refuse to push myself into my own grave, and we cannot continue to do that to the Earth and to ourselves.
As long as we still exist, we have the power to choose and to change, to heal instead of continue the increasing the damage.
So I’m working on getting the Climate Emergency Sailboat sailing. It’s still my way of doing everything I can.
With hope and determination,
Ann
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I’m hoping to find someone who can help with emails to ask for material donations from businesses (an Earth sail, solar system, etc), and with fundraising and things like that. You’d actually be doing most of it, but I’ve got lists almost done up. Can anyone out there find time for this? I shall appreciate you forever and take you sailing and make you tea!
If you can help with time, gear, or otherwise, send a carrier pigeon (or just a message)… if you can help financially, here’s how:
Sporadic and one-time support through Chuffed, at
Ongoing support via Patreon, at
With deep thanks,
Ann
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