A New Day Here for Me and Shelter

I slept most of the weekend. Getting back from the Green Festival marked a turning point por moi. I was exhausted. The end of 2-year’s work on the tiny homes book. The last 4-5 months pedal-to-metal to get it done. I’ve been neglecting the physical for the mental (if you call it that). I haven’t been doing my homesteading chores and worse, have neglected what Plato termed the “gymnastic.” I haven’t balanced out Mac work with physical exertion.

The three trips I made this month all had to do with the book. Selling foreign rights in Frankfurt, overseeing printing in Hong Kong, and early display at the San Francisco Green Festival. Whew! I have the image of bulldogging a steer, staying with it until it’s grounded. A bit hard to realize it’s done. Still a big promo campaign to wage, but the stress is gone, thank the lord. Jim Morrison said something like, when you finish making a record, you’re released to work on the next one. True that.

I’ve got a lot of the local world to explore now — beaches, woods, trails, roads, lakes. I went down to the beach last week and was stunned by the beauty. It was so deep and meaningful. We are told how fucked up the world is every day, yet my heart was bursting with joy. I felt so privileged, and all it took was a mile or so walk. ( I realize that I repeat the same thing more or less frequently, but goshdarnit, the wild world just reaches out and grabs me again and again.)

Plato’s “music:” Boz Scaggs on radio doing Lend me A Dime hits just the right note this sunny/cloudy cool coastal day. A new week, a new year.

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

5 Responses to A New Day Here for Me and Shelter

  1. Sounds like a well earned break for a day. I have to take a wander every night to leave behind the working world, unwind and reconnect to the real one. For me it is always enjoyable to find your local travels & thoughts on your blog, happy trails!

  2. Well done Lloyd, and very very good luck with the book. I look forward to seeing it.

    Marcia

    and Trudy says Hi too.

    P.S. A tiny house sounds soooooo good as I look around the 10 room house and 5 generations of stuff. At 82 it is daunting.

  3. Life is definitely good in Marin county, it's a unique place. But no matter where we live our lives are what we make of them. When I was a 20 yr old newly arrived from the east coast in Sausalito in 1975 the restaurant on the dock (I think it was the Trident?) had a sign that said 'Work for a life, not for a living', that always stuck with me. It takes a lot of effort and some courage to make a life, it's not the easiest path.

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