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Now on to this week’s musings…
At long last I have returned to my van build. In the last week I’ve had one and a half days of cutting and sanding, painting and fitting. After months of not being able to balance Finn’s needs with building, a day and a half is an exciting accomplishment. I’ve ended my days covered in saw dust and sweaty from the heat that hit Cornwall at the start of September. Returning to my van has been a whirl of emotions, of joy and frustration and satisfaction. Only being able to make incremental progress when I want to sprint to the finish line is beyond annoying, but watching Finn leap happily into the van makes me smile every time.
Today the van has gone off on a trip to Stuart who is going to put the final touches to the electric system and start on the water. I decided last year not to tackle the utilities alone, to get the help needed to make sure they are installed correctly, that nothing will leak or electrocute me. Its a decision I am more and more pleased to have made. As my dear friend Angela drove off in the van today, delivering it to Stuart who lives near her, I was reminded that like so much else in life, building my home needs the help of community. I am lucky to have one and proud that I am leaning on it.
Getting the van ready to head off to Stuart is what motivated me to be brave and open the door, get out my tools, and see if Finn and I had reached a point that I could return to building our future home. In the space of a day and a half I got the next piece of the bed built, making space for the water tank, pump, and water heater; installed the stud frame for the oven to sit on; put my lights in place ready to be wired in; and prepared timber so I can keep working while the van is away.
As I did all that, I also tried everything I could think of to keep Finn happy, safe, and settled as I worked. In the end it turned out all he needed was shade somewhere close to me. He didn’t care about the noise of the power tools, and though he occasionally got bored, he was mostly totally chilled. What a perfect artists dog he is turning into. My imagination is filled with images of him sleeping by the door of some gorgeous studio or in the van as I work by a fire. The best wolf, watching the world with me.
I knew going into the van build that it wasn’t going to be easy. Two years later, I think if the dream wasn’t so important to me, if it didn’t still feel so right deep down in my core, if I didn’t have a community to lean on and a dog to keep me smiling, I might have given up by now. I am glad I haven’t, it will make the day the van is complete so much sweeter.
But that’s for the future, right now the sweetness comes from knowing that I can build with Finn next to me, knowing that the van is going off to Stuart for a major step forward, knowing that I can keep working while it is away. That sweetness is tender and sometimes fragile, but it is also real and growing stronger every day. I look forward to sharing more with you all in a fortnight, hopefully the van will be back by then with fabulous water pipes running through it. Until then, Finn and I will keep building the kitchen.