While it is still too early to know nearly enough about cloud hopping, I’ve been recently realizing that I live in rare spaces… earthily heavenly.
After a month since leaving Soundcliff for good
Dismantling the studio was complicated… being a collection of processes & their tools, well settled into that large space. I needed to do most of that sorting, editing & packing myself so that it respected some of my own logic.
I want to share my grateful thanks to the special folk who became so important to the deep, tiring work of helping us actually accomplish this move… we simply could not have done this without them!
Stephen’s remarkable friend (they’ve known each other since junior high school) Bill Monson has been curious about the possibility of relocating from Minnesota to the Northwest. He & I have become close over the years as well, so we invited him to “house-sit” the condo during the process.
That proved very useful as we were frequently driving back & forth between our two homes every several days for those several months, schlepping our collection of art & various boxes, as we got them packed & ready, to get them out of the way of packing-up more.
He enjoyed the adventure of getting acquainted with Tacoma, biking the streets in our future neighborhood. We appreciated having someone to accept & direct the delivery of the things we were ordering for the new space, like the couch & the bed. We enjoyed that he would have the place warmed-up & tidy, as we would be arriving with the next load late & weary from another difficult day. There he’d be, meeting us with smiles & good humor (which we’d sometimes lost between ourselves), as we pulled into the parking garage, having the hand-truck/dolly we’d bought, ready to help take the load from the car to the elevator up to the unit. Then we would either eat whatever I’d made for dinner or continue to explore the collection of eateries in our village.
He would also read the very thick homeowner’s manual for the condo, helping us begin to grok the vicissitudes of these complex Bosch appliances, when I had little time & less patience for those. His calm capabilities were often a welcome & needed balm. We learned the unbelievable necessity of putting a metal spoon in a cup of coffee to be heated in the microwave! He coached us about the unusually lengthy time it takes to wash & dry a rather small load of clothing or towels.
We celebrated our simple holidays together… Thanksgiving, Solstice, Christmas & New Years… in either one or both places. Then Bill left, rather too suddenly, dodging the weather forecast for his drive home. & because he wanted to clear the condo for our more permanent arrival… a gentleman always. Buckets of gratefulness, Bill!
Momo Street has been working with me for about 5 years. She has become a very good friend as we’ve worked together. In fact, I’ve become rather dependent on her for many parts of the bells’ work… especially for the social media. I’ve long intended to write a post around her alone to pay her tribute…. but this is not the place for that. Later…
James Cottrell…my favorite masseur before he was injured… helped in significant ways, beginning with moving Kip’s huge 5’X8′ painting on the rack of his pickup one clear sunny winter day. Then helping me dismantle the base of our bed since we knew the new owners were going to install their king-sized & would have trashed it. I knew that our contractor Peter Anderson & crew had built it in sections & I wanted to salvage the fine craftsmanship of those drawers to re-use in our huge closet in the condo. We did need to saw off a section where the massage table had been stored, but those drawers were so much better than the new ones for which we paid too much!
James was so generous! I was happy to reciprocate a little by giving him a lot of tools I wasn’t going to be moving, plus several decades of collections of hardware from the studio crawlspace.
I cannot thank him enough for his skillful strength!
Steven Shaun, “terminally unique” friend, garden yogi & poet… Shenanigan Road steward of so many years’ maintenance, came to stay for several weeks of hard work… what a range of loving, if offtimes puzzling history we share! He is an intense worker who can accomplish astounding things out of old shoestrings.
Our nephew David Reimann, to whom I am planning to pass-on the bell business, came during the second weekend of the Studio Tour in December to observe & help . It is good to have him becoming more involved with the bells. He is stepping up to the idea with fresh ideas & competence.
David returned on Valentine’s Day to help set up the new studio, but became quite literally a moving force during the last days of getting us out of the Island house… right during the period in which our energies were flagging with exhaustion.
There is no way we could have accomplished all this without these friends, & others I probably am neglecting!
As we sorted & packed, it became obvious we needed to hold a potlatch to gift all sorts of good stuff in the native NW tradition, but still we had to take much more to our thrift store. I did this bit of calligraphy for the invitation to our event.
We invited Michael Meade to create a ceremony about the change. Here is a video clip produced by Peter Ray who is another diligent Island creative who has documented innumerable events over years:
Stephen & Tusk made “mood” signage for the event…
After more weeks, we finally got the house stripped of all which wasn’t moving with us, saying goodbye to our history & welcoming Soundcliff’s new life with Elizabeth & Keith Friedman, the new owners.
GOODBYE SOUNDCLIFF!