Yesterday Randall and I moved the Airstream to a new site behind the tin shed. This is ten years after putting it where it was. Things acquire permanence and this site had become fixed. And wrong. It was visually in the center of the landscape, and shouted travel, temporary, aluminum. The Airstream is an American icon, and deservedly so, but it needed tucking away.
"In 1931, Airstream began with Wally Byam’s dream: to build a travel
trailer that would move like a stream of air, be light enough to be
towed by a car, and create first-class accommodations anywhere.Every inch of an Airstream has a function. Airstream is the most
thoroughly tested brand in trailer history. Its engineering is the
culmination of over 80 years of experience plus millions of miles on
roads throughout the world. With Airstream, there is no planned obsolescence. Airstreams of the
Thirties are still on the road today, sturdy and modern as ever. They
are a lifetime investment in happiness."
The new site was chosen carefully. It now sits on a limestone pavement looking out onto a small sloping meadow, backed by trees. Its own corner. I am determined to make it a liveable space, getting at least cold water installed, cooking and fridge. Loo in the nearby metal shed, also tarted up as a general central campus facility.
Moving and mowing was in heavy tick country. Spent a long time since then tick picking.
The new location and space is one more fantasy of a place to write. It has everything plus a certain intimacy. Perhaps the cigar tube-type cylinder materializes in the imagination a kind of metal monad, a place from which to contemplate the world.
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