Mila’s space 2021 
Tristan’s space 2020
Tristan makes the most of the impossible Toronto real estate market by imaginatively using the 560 square feet he lives in with my daughter, Maja, and their 2 children under 2, Mila and Elsie. I think there might be a useful blog in there. It got me thinking about my own oft-neglected blog and how to (re)focus. If I want to share my poetry and art more widely by submitting my work to magazines, it cannot have been published here first. Thus, in the short term I should be blogging more, and ‘publishing’ less. Musée Mia Burrus is organized as a space, and space has always been of interest to me; psychic space, physical space, and their intersection; use of space, misuse of space, accidental and intentional new use of space; museum as a space to wander and wonder about the past, the present, the possible.
I recently read Gaia’s Garden, about permaculture and forest gardening. The late author, Toby Hemenway, summarized the following principles and attitudes of permaculture design, which he in turn gleaned from others, and which I paraphrase here. Permaculture principles are not just about gardening; I intend to work them into my existing principles of a creative life, as I imagine Tristan intuitively works such principles into urban life.
- 1) Observe thoughtfully before acting.
- 2) Connect time-saving relationships among all elements.
- 3) Capture, store and reinvest energy and materials.
- 4) Choose and place each element to perform as many functions as possible.
- 5) Create redundancy by using multiple methods to achieve important functions.
- 6) Make the least change for the greatest effect.
- 7) Start small-scale and intensive, and grow by chunking.
- 8) Optimize the edge between two environments.
- 9) Collaborate with natural succession. Don’t fight the progress towards maturity.
- 10) Favour renewable resources.
- 11) Be inspired by constraints.
- 12) Design for short and long term returns on your efforts.
- 13) The biggest limit to abundance is creativity.
- 14) Mistakes are teaching tools.
I really enjoyed this – short, sweet, but full of information 🙂 I love the obviously well used spaces created and used by your family. We have also been looking at space as a concept and that getting a bigger space just means reorganizing to that size…but what if we just reorganize to the size we have, and be thoughtful of the items we keep and de-clutter the stuff that doesn’t have a spot…Love the list too from the book…will be mulling it over and processing how to apply the gentle concept into our lives. Keep blogging and writing – unless you are busy with those grand babies 🙂
You too live in a school, but a functional one, just to add to the challenge!