Part 1 can be found herePart 2 can be found herePart 3 can be found hereMy friend Remus is a gentle soul; It seems my account of how I live is, in his words, breaking his heart.
Honestly, when I began writing this yesterday, it wasn't my intent to elicit sympathy* from my readers. I'm actually taking this somewhere. If you recall, I initially wrote:
I've seen a lot of minimalist workspaces on Lifehacker and BoingBoing recently, stuff like how to use the bit of space behind a desk set across a corner of a room. I've been thinking lately a lot about how to live comfortably in a small space, with an eye for the day when I will have to leave Yosemite in a hurry.
But the more I wrote, the clearer it became to me that I really do live under some pretty shitty conditions. The part that has stuck with me, that I keep coming back to, is that I live in a trailer with no running water. No running water. It's kind of a shock to me. I've lived in this room since the middle of January, and it's just now sinking in.
Running water is something we Americans take for granted. Only hillbillies and rednecks don't have running water, or people in Third World countries. I recently read that the atrocities of Darfur are all based on water rights. Little girls are routinely raped on a DAILY BASIS as they leave their camp to go get water.
A story was circulating that female service members in Iraq were deliberately under-hydrating because they were being attacked on their way to the latrines at night. That was later proven false, if I recall, but you get the picture.
Add to that that in many places what water is available is by our standards undrinkable. My friend Susan once said that one of the easiest and cheapest ways to prevent infant mortality in other countries is to ensure clean drinking water, but it's not being done.
The Sierra Nevada is the primary watershed for all of California. The water is stored here in the form of "Sierra cement", snow. It is some of the most pure water in the entire world. Not 200 feet from my door is an abundant supply of clean, sweet, cold water--the taps in the showerhouse. It is so pure that I can fill that plastic waterjug and a week later it still tastes fresh!
The worst I have to suffer is a possible run-in with an opportunistic bear, or the possibility of a slip and fall on ice. I don't have to face soldiers demanding sexual favors in exchange for a few gulps of muddy, microbe-laden swill. By the way, the bears here are WIMPS. All you have to do is yell at them, and they meander off.
Tom Robbins once wrote in "Another Roadside Attraction" that human beings are nothing more than a complex system for moving water from one place to another.
Or to paraphrase
Uncle Albert, everything is relative. I don't have it so bad when compared to the rest of the world.
Sure, it's a pain to have to put my boots on with ice cleats to go to the bathroom or shower. Yeah, the trailers are ugly as sin. But not only do I have it better than a huge segment of the total human population on this planet, but the fact of the matter is I live in one of the most sought after destinations in the world.
When I lost my job last fall, I was offered a place to live by one of the bus drivers. I had a huge room to myself, with a view of oak trees and the gentle rolling hills of the Sierra foothills. I had a fireplace, internet access, and two cats and two dogs that would sleep with me. I had a washer and dryer, and a bathroom I could walk naked to if I chose. But still I longed for my beautiful Yosemite. I fought to get my job back, and the relief I felt when the board of adjustments voted unanimously to reinstate me brought me to tears of thankfulness.
I took a paycut, and took on hard (and to some) demeaning work. But it was worth it.
I make $9.38/hour. This coming Friday I should see my 3% pay raise kick in, and beginning April 1st my taxes will be cut. After the 7th of May, I'll see another pay raise, for having passed my 4 year mark. That should put me over $10/hour.
I pay $20.99 a week for rent. That includes electricity, water, sewage, and trash. I pay $45 a week for the food plan; granted it's limited in availability--I rarely get to eat lunch on it because I only have a half hour, and what really irritates me is that the closest food source has such high prices that I can't have a drink with my meal without going over my per-meal allotment. But I don't have to shop for food, nor store it, nor prepare it, nor wash dishes afterwards. I really can't feed myself for $45 a week, not with prices in the park so high, and the price of gas going up again. And I need to eat a lot. My old metabolism has returned; When I arrived in Yosemite, I was a size 16. Now I'm a size 6. No, I'm not sick. I've lost weight because I hike. I can't survive on a 2000 calorie/day diet.
So what is the payoff? Why do I put up with living like this? At first it was the scenery. But over time I developed friendships, found my place in the community. My neighbor with the squeaky bed recently GAVE me a window fan. It's a good one, with a thermostat to cycle the fans on and off. It can be switched to intake or exhaust. It's in perfect working order. He doesn't need it because he's got an air conditioner.
When I needed to leave my housing, Karen offered me that room in her house for $200/month. She also helped me move my stuff.
I met and became friends with a photographer whose work inspired me before I even left Rhode Island.
When I leave my tiny room to go eat, I find myself in the company of folks from around the world who are in good moods because they've just returned from a hike, or saw a coyote, deer, bobcat or even a bear for the first time in their lives.
I've been able to contribute to the flow of information around the world via the internet; I've had the joy of teaching people about Yosemite on a daily basis.
Is it worth it? *shrug* It is to me. Oh, yes, it is to me.
*We had a saying in the Navy: "If you're looking for sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis".
How I live, Part 5:
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