II. Use the Edges and Value the Marginal
She saw no signage for the beaten path. Being born to a French father and an adventurous mother set her blazing her own trail. She was destined to become the “other,” and happily embraced that opportunity.
She grew up in a creaky old house with no television, often complained that there was no “modern bread” since Mom baked her own, and the horned Scottish Highlander scared her friends. She was a “Faculty Brat,” the daughter of two teachers at Proctor Academy, the private boarding school she eventually attended and now works at. In the center of a New Hampshire town, the people are stratified by class and intention. She went to the local public school until high school, where her childhood friends were replaced by significant wealth and an alien culture. As a prep-school, it was expected that everyone “prepare” for college. She saw little worth in that?“What about life after college? What about living?”
She travelled to New Zealand, hitch-hiking for two months with her best friend, sleeping under bridges and in gentle strangers' homes. They joined Occupy movements and worked on different farms. She met her soul-mate with whom she lived in their van on the beach. He was nine years her senior but there was a mutual exchange of wisdom and love.
She flew home, a head of unwashed dreads walking barefoot through the Sydney, Los Angeles, and Boston airports to go to Smith College, an all women's school. Often she was asked, “Why all women?” and she consistently responded, “I don't know. I wanted to learn about women.”
She chose to leave Smith after one semester, wanting a better balance of theory and praxis. Yestermorrow Design and Build School had intrigued her, and so with little thought she applied for the Sustainability Certificate and headed to Vermont. To assist her studies, she bought a house. Yet again, she was the "other"--a 20 year-old female renovating a house was not a common sight.
Female. Young. Single. Homeowner. Permaculturist. Untraditional. She remains the "other."
Un/Learning commentary
III. Produce No Waste
Mom and Pops were frugal to say the least. Every shell from langoustines and every bone from our goats was saved, reused, repurposed. They collected the food scraps from the dining hall for their chickens and compost. Dishes were done in buckets that were emptied onto the herb garden or into a pot on the woodstove to battle winter dryness. Sophie's family was resourceful--not limited by objects' intended uses. She learned that everything is valuable: "one man's trash is another man's treasure."
In high school, she began creating functional trash art, or "up-cycling." Dresses from soda cans riveted together, lamp shades from ironed plastic bags, cardboard furniture and license plate bird-feeders came streaming out of her "sweat shop" as Papa fondly dubbed it.