5/5/2012

Today Jorge and Juan and I all got started late…after ruining a cup of coffee with some half and half definitely past its prime…

We decided to router all the deck boards to give them a more defined appearance–and installed the EMT balusters into the railing frames and then routered some nice 2×8′s to create the caps over the uprights.  This is something we do all the time at low cost for something that is often quite expensive…but today there was a different route for the router…in that the clients were enthusiastically engaged in the work of building their home–and despite a lack of experience they persisted in their efforts and succeeded in being quite helpful.

They cooked me dinner last night and I cooked them breakfast–with good coffee the second time around–and our meals were an opportunity to express portions of our lives and profound opinions on numerous subjects…while being simultaneously knit together in the common bond of creating their home.  I realize just reflecting on this how fortunate I am to develop so many lasting friendships while building–all over the country actually–which is also equally true for many of the crews who stay on site all over the U.S.  It is such a privilege to live in someone’s home or at the very least on their property and have regular access to showers, meals and–you guessed it–coffee.  All of this interaction generates an enormous amount of conversation–not just about the project at hand but our work, the state of the union, current events, marriage and relationships, food, politics and faith.

Yesterday and today I got to work with two men I essentially have barely met–and as we hugged and said goodbye this afternoon we all commented on how special it was to be a part of this together….building a relationship in the context of building this Geobarn…with the latter a vehicle impelling the former.  We have connected over something that actually matters to all of us–which is their home as a place that represents many of their dreams and longings and connection to the creation/outdoors–and the building is also evolving as they become more and more engaged in it and see more and more possibilities as to how it will finish out, how it is already transitioning from indoors to outdoors, how it looks as if it has been here a while and they already envision their landscapes and plantings.

They expressed several times that they are enthralled to be a part of building their house–and how empty a process it would be to simply pay money and show up to get the keys….and in recognizing and acting on these convictions they are making this place into their home…their space, their dwelling, their resting place–right now and for years to come.

We did not get that much vertical construction done–but a lot got built that wasn’t on the drawings–as an unexpected gift of blessing we hadn’t planned for on any plans.

george