This graphic brings back memories of my life in the past year living on the road. Visiting where I had once lived in a swamp. Not like my old home, because I was renting one with tin walls, although the tarp shielded it from leaks, the Winters were cold if I did not keep my little micro space heater going, the water was from a Spring and I endured a couple of ice cold hair washings in the Winter when the propane heater in the outdoor shower wasn't working, and the outhouse was a Godsend when the only septic toilet in the campground wasn't working, except for the bugs inside the toilet and hoping that no-one came by when you were using it, something was better than nothing. Life on the campground was serene and damply comfortable, cold but it warmed up after the space heater got going. This story goes a few years back with a few musicians borrowing my guitar, we strummed a few songs, sometimes around the campfire to keep warm and during nicer weather on the beach and in the Winter we kept the guitar inside my camper. The guitar created a bond and I can still think of everyone fondly. Out on the West Coast I lived a familiar endurance for a few years but I am still here, trying to eek out a living on eBay. Getting highly educated wasn't easy, when I was in Northern Ontario, it is a good thing that the bicycle had mountain bike tires, they tread good in the snow, with my ski goggles, an atv hood, a military type that had some sort of plastic between the layers of cloth, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of socks, a good pair of snow hiking boots that I bought in a going out of business sale for a mere sum, travelling the Winter by bicycle wasn't as tough with the gear but at the end of a 45 minute bike ride, I had sweated it out, and the strife paid off when I graduated with a Diploma in the computer workplace field. What was really strange was travelling on this bicycle everyday and watching everyone in their heated cars with their windows up going by me. They must be warm was what went through my mind, but I am used to this and they don't know that I am warm too.
After a couple of years "roughing it" in BC, I had moved to Northern Ontario for two years, worked and had my own basement apartment, I graduated from college but a few months after graduation I found myself getting poisoned, so I bought a used van and after fibreglassing the body to get it certified for the road and insulating the inside, I headed for the "hills" and left that Province. After that place, I spent two years living in my commercial van. I had painted the outside and put my copy written name on the side with a guitar, although I did not do any singing at cafes anymore, my CD was on the internet and I thought that it was good to promote it and it also made me look like I was in different places, doing something other than looking for work. Although, I did find work, the workplaces were making me ill, gas that I couldn't prove or explain, finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, the gas at work almost had me collapse and I gave my notice, again. I noticed, people at work had disappeared, here and there, all of a sudden, no real good explanation, they just did not come back. Colleagues were also getting sick, one lady that started with me got sick during training and got rushed to hospital, and she never came back.
In 2012, I bought myself a best friend and brought her back with me to live in civilization for awhile. Starting again, like way back in 2010 and like way back in 2008, and like way back....starting again, and again, like way back in 2001 I owned an eBay Store that made it to have me profiled while I was eeking it out again as a single mother. Click my best friend's picture to see me in the limelight.
Life goes on and on from sharing space with slugs and mud, and living among victims of social injustice and problems, people like me just keep enduring, hoping to see the light one day. I do get blessed along the way.
