Holden Main-Street: Tim Carlson
[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to Holden Main Street: a playful podcast series dedicated to capturing the daily life and creative musings of ordinary folk at Holden Village. Who are the people drawn to this wild and uniquely transformative mountain community? How do their descriptions of hilarity, wilderness living, shared work and interior exploration shape the landscape of their time here? Expect to be delighted by improvised stories, poetry readings, the sounds of tea being poured, songs being sung, and bits of whimsy inspired by the moment. Enjoy.
[00:00:41] Dev: Welcome, welcome to another episode of the Holden Podcast. I am your host Dev (he/him) pronouns and I am with the birthday man himself: Tim Carlson. Happy birthday.
[00:00:55] Tim: Thank you.
[00:00:56] Dev: And you've been coming here for a long time.
[00:00:59] Tim: Yes, I have. First time was I believe in the late eighties as a volunteer carpenter. The first time I was up here I was putting cedar shakes on chalets.
[00:01:09] Dev: Beautiful. What keeps you coming back to Holden?
[00:01:13] Tim: I love carpentry. 20 years ago I moved from a big house in the country where I had a shop...into a houseboat in the middle of Seattle where I couldn't bring my shop with me. So I love doing woodworking and I love working in the shop up here that's well equipped. And that's really what I enjoy doing while I'm up here.
[00:01:31] Dev: Wonderful. Your houseboat is actually kind of famous. What inspired you to make that change in homes?
[00:01:37] Tim: 28 years we lived in the country and my wife was really wanting to move to the city. Finally, I said well, if we can find something that could really excite us both, I'm open. We had a daughter working at REI and she said, why don't you bring your kayak up and we'll go paddling on Lake Union in Seattle. And so we did that, and it never occurred to us to live in a floating home, but we saw a for sale sign on the end of one of the docks and got us both excited...and there we were 20 years ago.
[00:02:07] Dev: It was meant to be.
[00:02:08] Tim: It was. Yeah.
[00:02:09] Dev: That's fantastic. Are there any favorite memories that you have in the village?
[00:02:16] Tim: My wife passed away six years ago and I came up here in 2017 to begin a grieving process. And in that process, what I was reminded of was it was here at Holden Village that we exchanged pinky rings, and I still wear that today.
[00:02:36] Dev: That's amazing.
[00:02:37] Tim: And so that's a favorite memory of mine.
[00:02:40] Dev: Thank you for sharing.
[00:02:42] Tim: Thank you.
[00:02:42] Dev: Holden's been a coming together location for a lot of couples, partnerships, marriages throughout the years...my parents included. You know, there's something in the air in this village that brings people together. Did you both enjoy the hiking around here?
[00:02:55] Tim: Oh yeah. Very much so. My wife never did it with me, but I hiked in over spider-gap half a dozen times into the village. So that's been a favorite hike around here. But yeah, I've really enjoyed the hiking here.
[00:03:07] Dev: How do you typically celebrate your birthday?
[00:03:10] Tim: Typically I celebrate my birthday with my family. This is the first time I've been here at Holden for my birthday, so it remains to be seen what today will turn out to be. They'll probably sing Happy Birthday to me tonight and that will be fun.
[00:03:23] Dev: Yes, absolutely. I'm looking forward to hearing what your style of birthday song will be. For those of you that are unaware of the Holden tradition, for those who have birthdays or anniversaries, they get to pick any kind of style in which people get to sing and congratulate and celebrate.
So that's wonderful. That will happen this evening with you. Is there anything else you would like to say in this session?
[00:03:52] Tim: The community is just so welcoming. And there's always people that go out of their way to include everybody that comes into the village. I come back two or three months a year to work as a carpenter and so I meet people that I see each time I come up here. And that's always a delight. And there's always new people to get acquainted with.
[00:04:11] Dev: That's true. What would you say to someone who was interested in volunteering or being here for a longer period of time? Do you have any advice for them?
[00:04:23] Tim: Come and try it. It's really hard to explain the experience and the experience is a little bit different for each person, I think. But there's some real commonality too, and that is that it's very welcoming. It's truly is an intentional community and what makes it really unusual is that it's in a very remote location. It really is some distance from the larger community on the outside...and there's something really special about that.
[00:04:53] Dev: I agree. I agree. I think this place is a total gem. Why don't you give me an object and a feeling.
[00:05:01] Tim: Peace. Mountains.
[00:05:03] Dev: How perfect. We climbed that mythical mountain and when we reached the top and we saw everything below us, we just were imbued with this deep peace.
[00:05:16] Tim: First thing that comes to mind is, "oh my God, I got up here. Now how am I gonna get down?"
[00:05:22] Dev: That's right. And you being an engineer created this apparatus that attaches itself to Eagles. What happens next?
[00:05:33] Tim: We landed
[00:05:34] Dev: (uncontrollable laughter) True. Absolutely. We landed. Have you been to an improv show before?
[00:05:44] Tim: No, I never have. My wife was really good at storytelling.
[00:05:48] Dev: Oh, wonderful.
[00:05:49] Tim: And she could just pick a story out of anything and our daughters were enthralled with that. I never found that I was able to do that but I like listening to her stories.
[00:06:02] Dev: Absolutely. Absolutely. Once again, Happiest of birthdays. Delighted to know you, Tim.
[00:06:08] Tim: Thank you, Dev.
[00:06:09] Outro: Thanks for joining us. Be sure to view the links in the description for more information or visit our website to find out more about the village. We hope you'll make a pilgrimage to Holden soon. Blessings and peace to you.
