Family Reunion

Full-on Independent Folk

Dave and I just hosted a siblings and parents family reunion on my side of the family. Everyone but my youngest sister, Natalie (Golda's daughter), was able to make it. It's a complicated family. Here's who made it:

• My dad, Stephen
  
• My dad's wife, Golda
• My sister, Siri
• My brother, Noah
• Noah's wife, Laurel
• Siri and Noah's mom, Deborah
• My mom, Shirley
• Long time family friends, Joan
• And Joan's daughter, Robin

That sounds awkward but it was really great. And it made me realize what a long line of independent minded folks I come from. My Grandmother on my mom's side ran her own business in an era when women normally stayed home. She was a seamstress and owned her own fabric store. My mom has lived off the grid in northern Minnesota for the past 27 years while working a variety of jobs that always ran towards uplifting folks who deal with discrimination on a daily basis. My dad is a potter who teaches at a college and has an independent studio and kiln where he does community firings 4 to 6 times per year. Deborah runs her own business buying and selling high-end antiques. And Joan worked as a puppet-maker for years and has recently started making jewelry.

Dave and I run our own business and are both always looking for new ways to make money and keep living this independent lifestyle we have come to enjoy so much. I do not feel like I am some great adventurer - neither does Dave. We are just living our lives the way we want. Sure, being self employed means we don't have health care, but neither of us wants to be tied down by a 9 to 5 job. We've done that and it sucks! No offense meant to those who do work full time for someone else. We work full time too, but we work from home and choose our hours. Every day we walk the dog for a long and leisurely walk down by the lake (Lake Superior), we take breaks when we feel like, and we work our tails off when we need to. (And if we did the math on how much we pay ourselves we would probably make less than minimum wage - luckily neither of us is much good at math.)

I wish everyone who wanted to could work for themselves without fear of losing their health care. Imagine what a happy and productive society we would be if folks could work at what they loved. If we had a national health care system like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, France, etc (you get the picture) I think Americans could regain their entrepreneurial spirit and burst forth in creative endeavors. I'm hoping that in my lifetime I will see such an advance in our society.