​One of the first things you should know about me is I am a comfort seeker. I am a seeker of comfort. Whether this is because of the general lack of comfort I was offered as a child, or indicative of my alcoholic nature, is of no consequence and has no impact on my relentless comfort seeking endeavors.
 
For the greater part of my youth I found comfort only in over-indulgence. My motto was “if one is good, ten must be better”. This worked really well with alcohol and drugs—especially since I equated “comfort” with “oblivion”. I’m sober now, have been for a number of years and glad of it. Oblivion doesn’t hold the same promises it once did and I am glad of that, too.
 
At one point I assumed that I should or would abandon my comfort seeking for more noble pursuits—perhaps something in the self-sacrificing arena or a new selflessness, perhaps. While I am more inclined toward altruism these days, it hasn’t overshadowed it yet. I am just now discovering that my comfort seeking is not a fatal flaw—the error, the disconnect, was in what I thought I found comforting. As I change, so does my idea of comfort—and this, as they say, has made all the difference. 

​I promised a floor to start so here it is:

But before I get into that, let me say this:

​This writing is intended to be a record of what I perceive as My Green Age. How did I get here? I am rescuing a cabin on a 77-acre property in Vernonia, Oregon. I am salvaging it from its own downward spiral; I am attempting to sanitize, to construct and to repopulate this tiny little misused and poorly constructed thing—where nothing is straight or right or plumb or flush—and it never was! It was made like this: all wrong. It was used like that: all wrong.
 
I am determined to make it my home; a home for me and my family.
 
As I do this, everything I have ever known is being called into question—and, to reiterate, that has made all the difference.

Even now I am tempted to lie...to start my story in a place it doesn't begin. I have this belief that my poetic sense reigns supreme, and that life starts when I say it does--and, if I am honest with myself, there is not a lot of evidence to say otherwise. But that is another topic.

I begin here: with the floor. I wanted to start with the old rotting cabinets and the smell of mouse feces--but that was months ago. I might even prefer to start with a rainy day and a padlocked door--but that seems too obvious. In my effort not to lie I will start right here, right now, TODAY! I am sorely tempted to start with yesterday, but even that is gone...everything is gone, really. My whole life as it was, no longer exists and I am this new person. 

So about today: nothing really happened.