Traveler's Joy

My backyard is plagued with Clematis Vitalba, also known as Old Man's Beard or Traveler's Joy.  For a brief moment, the flowers open in a profusion of white, but mostly the vine is persistent and invasive, growing so heavily that it breaks branches of the trees it envelops.  It's clear why it's called Old Man's Beard: as the flowers turn to seeds, they become puffballs that grow increasingly scraggly as the fall wears on.  I haven't determined whether the name Traveler's Joy comes from the fact that the seeds disperse widely, or that the vines grow so quickly over everything, or that the plant seems to travel underground - when I pull it up by the roots, I trace along my fence line to the next plant, as though it's rhizomatic.  It grows natively in English hedgerows, though, so I suspect that some people have been happy to see it; particularly those who didn't need to take care that it didn't overwhelm their gardens, but could perhaps shelter under its thick cloak for a night.

On moving to Portland last winter and early spring, I had this amazing sense of momentum, excitement, openness.  I would meet people everywhere on my travels, and I wanted to carry that through into my daily life in my new city, and I did, for a while.  Months later, I've just had a refresher course in what that openness feels like.  This, I think, is something that should really be called Traveler's Joy.  What is it made of?  How do we feel it?

As the many friends I've made traveling will attest, there's spontaneity at the heart of it.  I set out in my travels with a clear path, many pilgrimage sites, a few milestones, and a return ticket all prepared.  Things were never set in stone, though - I gave myself permission to skip Notre Dame, I stayed extra days with a lover in Switzerland, I knew I could change my return ticket if I changed my mind.  Life would not derail if I followed the path I hadn't known I wanted to take until I came upon it, rather than the one for which I'd prepared.  

Permission to deviate led naturally to a curious happiness with unexpected travel "problems."  Given that I knew this was all an adventure, and one that would be fascinating no matter if I made it to the next stop or if I stopped and just lived wherever I missed the train, I could revel in the unknown of travel delays, road blocks, and technical problems.  These were not inefficiencies, these were the main event.  How would I have met my lover, if not for a broken cell phone that miraculously fixed itself the next day?  I wouldn't have absorbed that valley and those mountains without him there to keep me past my expected stay.  Long lines became great opportunities to look and listen carefully to what was happening around me, and to meet fellow travelers.  Wrong turns led to places that, like reading the book next to the one you were looking for on the shelf, provided depth and context and sometimes a treat better than the one I was searching out.  All of these moments built to great gratitude that the adventure continued.

Last week/weekend's reminder of this came from two directions.  Struggling with today's birthday, I reread "It's Not You: The 27 (Wrong) Reasons You're Single."  I don't recall how I found this book, other than probably the NYTimes, but I can say that despite the title, it's a pretty excellent book about life and love and the complications of our modern expectations.  I was in Chapter 24, wherein the author, Sara Eckel, talks about Loving-Kindness, when I realized that this is the natural mindset and daily meditation of the traveler.  When you give yourself permission to follow either the prescribed or unanticipated path; when you give yourself over to loving the moment for what it is, rather than where it might get you; when you build gratitude with every tick of the clock you're still on the ride; then you also remember to love all those around you, even and especially those you don't know.  It's easy, at that point, to look at a stranger and know that they are also living in the same world, with things that go wrong and things that go right, happinesses and sadnesses and eases and tensions.  When you get to that recognition, you can't help but love them, and I believe that love is felt, and I know it's more frequently returned when it is more freely given.

Friday I played golf for the first time in my life.  Learning new skills is like traveling - it's an adventure in which you must relinquish some control in order to move anywhere.  I left my keys at work, and had to go far out of the way to retrieve them - I was reminded to appreciate the ride, rather than rue the detour.  I conversed deeply and lightly, and sat through silences with a new friend.  And then, when the evening should have stopped, I offered a minor generosity and stepped into a swift river of connection, twisting though unforeseen banks.  I was reminded that in even more practical terms, eye contact, vulnerable sharing and intimacy, and appreciation develop directly into those moments of intense connection, those times when we feel we're seeing and being seen by others.

Why did I start this essay with Clematis, other than the name (which, I'll admit, was the main reason)?  I wonder to what extent we have to loose commitment in order to gain connection, and to what extent we limit our ability to develop a deeper reciprocity without it.  I know that loosing the weight of further acquaintance frees me to be more fully with someone in the moment of meeting them.  Discarding the duties of life gives me the time to appreciate the detours.  I know less about the other side of the equation.  My Clematis is committed to my garden, though, and I come back to it again and again.  I clear it out - one less thing to deal with - for a few weeks.  Then it returns.  With vigor that might appear to be rage, I cut it back, yank it off the fence, tear it out of the ground.  But the more I pull it, the more I appreciate how strong it is, how deep it's sent roots, how wide it's grown.  It's not a practice if it doesn't take some work.

As usual, I've gotten to the end of an essay and I'm not sure it's where I wanted to be.  Of course, in the multitude of possible worlds, this is the one I'm in, and this is what I've written, and it's late and I'm not in the mood to edit it, so I'm posting.  I'll give myself permission to come back and change it if need be.  

In Case You Were Wondering

I am still alive

I am in Barcelona until Monday, at which point I fly to Brussels and probably take the train to Ghent.

I am having a pretty awesome time on my trip.  Recent highlights - visiting the Alhambra thoroughly; all of Seville (except perhaps the Metropol Parisol, aka the main reason I went); playing with the Grulitas in Lanzarote, both on and off the field; walking around Sagrada Famiglia and finding both Modernista and pre-modernista gems in random Barcelona streets.

The best food I have eaten is the Bon Bon tapas from that awesome restaurant we visited on Sunday night after a nice walk from our apartments on Lanzarote (wherein I explained linoleum and everyone listened with apparent interest).  The bocadillo here in Barcelona the first day I arrived.  The cake-first meal I had with A and J in Cologne, with possibly the best berry cake in the world, then cabbage roulade with delicious pumpkin mash.  Also, the meal they cooked me with orange-garlic salad, duck with orange sauce, and fruit cobbler.  Pastries in Paris, pretty much without exception.  Jamon Iberico.  Tinto de Verrano.

Seville is beautiful, walkable, full of interesting buildings, laid back, and sunny, and if I'm not married in 3 years I'll learn Spanish and move there because it's full of the most handsome men I've ever encountered in one place, and I've played in a lot of frisbee tournaments.

I have met so many wonderful people on this trip, which is something I was really worried about.  I never feel really good writing about them, though...suffice it to say, sometimes it's quite difficult to say goodbye to someone you've know for really only a few hours, or someone you're getting to be with again after many, many years apart.

Blogging while on a trip is hard to do - when I have a thought, I'm usually out walking around, and don't want to stop to record it; frequently I'm without good internet connection; often there's too much to say.  Occasionally there's not enough to say.  Some places are disappointing or require more processing or are overwhelmingly awesome.

You can see a through-line from the vernacular architecture of the area around Chur and Peter Zumthor's buildings.  I wish more buildings were like his best works.

It's an amazingly difficult thing to keep architectural pilgrimage sites maintained.  So many hands want to touch, feet walk through dirty from the trek there, gum and trash magically accumulate, birds poop, sun and rain and snow fall, stones and mortar fall, metal expands, times change.  Sometimes, these days, it's also difficult to see anyone enjoying them in real time.  Everyone has their cameras out, to the point that I wonder what is actually coming through, but nonetheless/and, I feel compelled to take my own pictures to fit in.  Sharing the space with so many camera faces can be very odd - it's not exactly what I imagine when I think of creating great buildings for people to enjoy.

I kept up with photo documentation of my trip until I arrived in Paris.  I have Milan, Cinque Terre, Sagogn, Lauterbrunnen, Basel, and Lyon (including all side trips) through rough edit, but Paris gave me a huge backlog.  Cologne, Barcelona, Lanzarote, and Seville will be up someday. Maybe.

East of Eden is a fantastic book.  99% Invisible is an amazing podcast.  I was a little annoyed by but also quite enjoyed the Alchemist, and enjoyed without reservation the Book Thief.  Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is almost too funny to listen to on public transportation.  I am so grateful for podcasts.  They are free, insightful, entertaining, easy to get and delete, short, and they give you a dose of English whenever you want one.

My French helped me survive, but is not conversational.

My portfolio is under construction.  This whole website is under construction.  Sometimes you start projects at really inopportune moments, but at least you have started them.

I'm very happy to find myself eager to start on my Portland adventure.  I'm not hurrying through this part of the trip, but it's been very reassuring to have conversations with people where I tell them where I'm from and I know that I'll have as much exploring to do when I get "home" as I am doing here.  I'm still keeping my ears open for places that call my name here, though.

I think I'm staying within my budget.  I have occasionally skipped something I wish I hadn't, but such is life.  I feel like I've had some really excellent luck on this trip.  I've stuck quite closely to the plan I made ahead of time.  Sometimes I wonder if I'm drifting around too much, not engaging enough, and sometimes I realise that I haven't been going out on the weekends much - only when I'm with friends, really.  Then, I try to listen hard to what I'm really feeling.  Mostly, I'm not sure what it is, but it's good practice and every now and then, I hear something.

Work In Progress

I loved Gertie’s post the other day.  She is always an inspiration, but what I liked about this post wasn’t so much that it was inspiring, (which it definitely was) but that she made the comment:

I didn’t start my blog until after I turned 30, and I’ve recently been feeling so inspired creatively, like I’m getting closer to what I’m supposed to be doing. When I’m 40, maybe I’ll be even closer. I’m a work in progress, no doubt.

I think that as a young person, it’s hard to know how great getting older can be, especially in our youth-obsessed culture.  I don’t know if I’m noticing the trend of respect and, more than respect, admiration of age more because I feel like my age suits me in a very different way than it used to, or if there really is a trend.  I’ve enjoyed TLo’s posts about some of the beautiful older women gracing the pages of the fashion magazines.  I’m excited for my housemate, who’s quitting her job and moving across the country to go work on a farm, and just heard about another 30something who recently did the same thing and found the experience very rewarding.  Although my review last week at work was a little rough, this week went very well, and with the boyfriend and job going so well, and my decision last year (which I thought I blogged about, but I guess I didn’t) that I really like the way I look, I feel like it’s good to get older.  It’s not all about growing up, it’s about doing the things I want to be doing, and knowing that I’m doing the things I want to be doing.

Anyway, that being said, I’ve been spending all sorts of time on ancestry.com making a family tree (which I know my parents have done before, but it’s so cool to find ancestors in very old censuses, and I love seeing that although my family was always extremely working class, we were on occasion ribbon makers, silk weavers, engineer’s pattern makers, bakers, and green grocers).  I have lots of projects, including the new logo for our frisbee team, and my Lady Grey Coat – if I ever finish it it’s going to be too warm to wear – but I’m getting things done slowly but surely, like my new kitchen worm bin.  So, even though I know that sometimes I’m not doing my projects, I am doing the things I want to be doing.  Oh, and I really will take pictures of the party dress soon, because it turned out so well that I bought the Bridal Couture book that I had been renewing from the library!

So, with that little brain dump, I’ll go put some laundry in and get back to some of my works in progress, including me!

Winter Meals

When I was in grad school, I learned a trick from a friend for eating healthy homemade meals on a tight schedule. It wasn’t a big revelation, since I’d already tried it myself, but her method worked far better than mine. She had drawn up weekly meal plans, including a schedule, a grocery list, and a combination recipe so that all of the week’s dishes could be made in one coordinated cooking session, then stored in Tupperware ready to go out the door.

I have been doing a great clean up and organize effort this year, which has a way to go yet, but I thought I’d revisit her old meal plans the other day. They’re especially good in winter, since it’s not as easy to head to the garden or farmer’s market for fresh bits and pieces. When I looked at her old plans two weeks ago, though, I wasn’t that inspired, so I thought I’d do some new plans. My friend was much more concerned about variety than I am, though, so be forewarned that if you want more than four meals in your rotation, my meal plan is not for you. Here are my plans, which are sourced pretty much from Epicurious.com and smittenkitchen.com

White wine week:
My favorite dish of the week was Orzo with Shrimp, Feta Cheese, and White Wine, from Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/107904?mbid=ipapp)
I also made a delicious chard and white bean stew (http://smittenkitchen.com/2011/01/chard-and-white-bean-stew/), and chicken and mushrooms in white wine sauce (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/1940?mbid=ipapp). Each of those three dishes called for white wine, and I finished the bottle with a dried fruit compote (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/231666?mbid=ipapp). To top it off, I bought a few extra carrots and a full bag of celery, plus some fresh tomatoes and lettuce and I made fresh green salads whenever it felt too wintery. I also steamed some broccoli so that I’d have another cooked green.

This week of food actually lasted closer to two weeks, and I didn’t get tired of eating anything. I did have an unfortunate incident with the pepper grinder and the stew, so finding whole peppercorns in the stew was probably the low point of the week, but using a whole bottle of wine and most of a package of thyme were great perks. Cooking for one can be difficult that way. 

Green olives week:
This week, I’m planning to cook a moroccan stew, a barley risotto, and some lamb chops, with a side of escarole or other leafy wintery greens, and some cous cous, probably with raisins involved. I have some white beans left over from the previous cooking session, and the green olives and escarole carry nicely through the recipes. I’m going to do a bit more planning and substituting to make the shopping list more straightforward, but I think it will be another wonderful week (or two) of food.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/01/squash-and-chickpea-moroccan-stew/

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/01/barley-risotto-with-beans-and-greens/

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/06/lamb-chops-with-pistachio-tapenade/

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/351173?mbid=ipapp

Do you cook for a week at time? What are your favorite meal plans? Are you interested in having the shopping lists and combined recipes for my weeks? I’d love to hear your story if you try one of these two weeks of food.

A New Direction

I’m thinking about taking this blog in a new direction.  I’ll start with this little lunchtime post.

I’ve been imagining what I could do with this fabric for a few months now:

Spring in the Alps from Gorgeous Fabrics

Then, today I was looking at TLo’s post on Monique Lhuillier’s pre-fall collection and saw this dress:

That seems like just the right thing for this fabric.  Although I’m still imagining that what I’d do would be in shirt form… but maybe both.

Images from Gorgeous Fabrics and Style.com

Summer

A month has passed since my last post, and a lot has happened, to be sure.  The most notable of which must be the fact that I am gainfully employed, full time, as a designer at an architecture firm in Eugene!!!

Yes, that gets three exclamation points.  It’s been keeping me busy, which has resulted in the radio silence on this blog, and complete lack of effort on the portfolio website, but I can’t say that I’m too sorry about that.  As you may know, finding another job in Eugene wasn’t my intention, but all of the pieces kind of fell into place.  The women’s utimate team that seemed just out of reach for the past four years is finally coalecsing, and I felt very sad at the prospect of leaving town without having a season with them.  We came in second at Solstice, the tournament here in town, and we absolutely had a blast.  I also got a great new housemate, and hey, well, I got this job, and I really like it.

I’m working at Nir Pearlson Architect, and in the short time I’ve been there, we’ve submitted two projects for permitting.  Next week I’ll turn in the third, and I’ll do it by myself because Nir, my boss, is in Israel for the next two and a half weeks.  I’ll be manning the office alone, working on a few other projects and trying to keep everything going while Nir’s gone.  I think I’ll take the opportunity of the slight lull to make sure that my IDP hours for this job get counted, and to actually work on that online portfolio.

Summer in Eugene is pretty nice – I’m eating cherries as I type, and heading to a barbeque in an hour.  I’m enjoying working with Nir, and I know he’d like me to stick around a while longer and work on a few more jobs.  But although this job, this frisbee team, this housemate, and these cherries are fortuitous and fantastic, I still wonder how long it can last.

Up at Potlatch last week, I was reminded again of life in the city, and the different opportunities to take advantage of there.  Yesterday I spent the afternoon and evening with friends and we talked about San Francisco and Portland, and about living in the city.  I’m trying my best to be here, but, if you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’ve been having a tough time with that for some time.  I just want to peek ahead, find out where the plot’s going, but unfortunately that’s not an option.  So, I guess I just keep doing what I’m doing until it stops working.  And, I guess that after a few more weeks of just enjoying employed life,  I’ll start thinking again about the long-term plan again.

In the mean time, Potlatch was tons of fun, seeing all the little babies together a few weeks ago was fantastic,  I’m looking forward to Seaside and some sore beach legs, I can’t believe I get to play in Labor Day with my ladies, and I’m still hoping to head to Colorado to visit the brother.  I’m also hoping to get a few more hours of sewing in in the next few weeks because I keep buying patterns and fabric, so I keep needing to make beautiful things.  I’m catching up on Mad Men and thoroughly enjoying Friday Night Lights, and I’m trying to catch up with people I haven’t seen in a while, too, whether it be through email, phone calls, or unexpected visits.  So, in sum, life is full, and I’m going to do my best to get the most out of it.  I hope you’re doing the same – summer is so short, so love every minute of it!

Rain, progress

I’m at home right now because it’s raining, and it has been for several days.  Usually I’d be at the frisbee fields, but having gone over there and seen that they were a little more lake-like than is optimal, I found out that our team postponed our game to mid-June.  I was looking forward to the social time, and to running around for a bit of exercise.

I’ve been quite focused the last few days, finally accomplishing some longstanding goals.  I completed my portfolio revisions to my satisfaction.  While I may still work on some of the diagrams I had in mind and didn’t have time to realize completely, I’m very happy to have updated the work to show a few more key skills and ideas.  In addition, I quickly put together a web portfolio.  I’ve wanted to do that for a while, but using GoLive was never that pleasant, and I always seemed to need workarounds to accomplish the actions I was trying to achieve.  While my new effort is elementary, and obviously blog based (I may yet shell out for the hosting so that it can just be rachelauerbach.com and not rachelauerbach.wordpress.com), it gets the job done and has been fun to produce.  It was always tedious to get anything made in GoLive, let alone something that looked even remotely decent, so it’s nice that making this new portfolio was fun and easy, and that I know enough from the old days of html to make it a little better than basic.

[note.  I've just been trying to add a simple slideshow to my portfolio blog and have been foiled.  WordPress doesn't allow javascript, so even though I could script exactly what I want, I am stuck with only being able to use the somewhat clunky slideshows they allow with shortcode.  Maybe it is worth it to pay for the hosting... or maybe I'll just have long galleries.]

The other big milestone for the week was sending out several applications today, all to firms that are quite interesting to me.  It’s been very isolating to not have a job, and especially now that all of my friends who are in school are working overtime to get ready for finals, I sometimes feel like even my social life doesn’t make up for sitting alone all day, every day, working in front of the computer.  Now that I’ve got things to send, though, I can go back to a more varied routine, with time for sewing and reading.  I can also set up some more informational interviews, and hopefully something will progress to the point where I get hired and am once again part of a team – where at least I’ll be sitting with other people all day, every day, even if I’m also working on the computer all day, every day!

On a final note, though I delayed it because I didn’t go back to school this year, I’m doing my annual rereading of Atmospheres and Thinking Architecture now.  So many projects floating in my mind!

Waking up from hibernation

Another two part post – some musings on generation divides to follow the life update.

It’s funny that I just bought furniture for my apartment, since I’m planning to move.  If that move is to somewhere on I-5, I’m good, if not, I’m probably contributing to the awful amount of particleboard in our nation’s landfills.

I cleaned a lot this past weekend, and with the organizing and the beautiful weather, I feel a bit like I’m waking from hibernation.

I realized that I’d sort of been snowed under, with things all over my floor literally preventing me from moving freely.  I subscribe to the idea that a real housecleaning can do wonders for the psyche, and that making doors fully operable and floors clear to walk on can help to make paths in our lives clearer, too.  I realized, too, that the snowed-underness is somewhat chronic for me, but that it might be worse because there were a few things I’d never really taken care of from graduation, plus getting back from LA added an unfinished unpacking to the pile, plus entering into the Cavin Family Traveling Fellowship delayed the cleaning another week.

So, I finally took my car to get washed, which was really so easy that I will totally do it again, and I finally replaced my little old art tacklebox with a set of clear plastic drawers that also hold my office supplies and my sewing supplies.  It’s on wheels, and it almost makes me glad that my desk doesn’t have drawers because it’s great to be able to roll it around as an extra work surface during intense sewing/architecture moments.  I got a new trashcan for our bathroom, our first of which mysteriously disappeared a few months ago.

I also got a bookcase.  I have two wonderful little white bookcases that are painted wood deals from a vintage store in Springfield.  I’ve been watching craigslist on and off, and considering that I went to every vintage/antique/goodwill store I know of in Eugene and Springfield this summer to get those beauties, I knew that chances were slim of me finding a third.  Oh, it was sad to put those plastic dowels through that laminated skin, to nail that cardboard onto the back of that board, but it is amazing to have my books off the floor.

So, I’m set up to conquer the world, by which I mean update my cut sheet and send out applications, redo my last IDP installment, send in my taxes and census form, and finally file away the little bits and pieces that have been floating around wondering where they belong for oh so long now.  If only it wasn’t so beautiful outside.  And, if only I didn’t realize that I’ve been spending way too much time by myself… although with a lot of folks on spring break and a promise of rain next week, I might be successful yet.  Wish me luck in taking on all of those looming tasks – I think it’s going to feel pretty great to knock them out, just like it felt to finally finish furnishing my rooms with the things they were lacking.

Oh, and I didn’t get all new things.  Doing that laundry in the basement, I checked to see if the trashcan had somehow walked downstairs and discovered a somewhat homely but perfectly serviceable coffee table behind what appeared to be an entertainment center.  Yes, it’s got a laminate top, but parts of it were wood, and it was free, and it will go back in the basement when I move.  After six months without a coffee table, it’s awesome to have one.

OK, on to my ponder.  Today I was looking at the Harvard Business Review for graphic design inspiration.  I know, it sounds as bad as it was, but really, I needed to see how they set up their cases, since the cases we’re writing for work are based loosely on their model.  They may not have the best designer on staff, but man can they write a case!  I got distracted by the task at hand by actually reading the article, which was about differences in Gen X and Gen Y approaches to the workplace.  What’s somewhat funny to me is that I think I’ve read the article before, and it’s totally cheesy, and it’s definitely based on caricatures of the stereotypes of the two generations, but nonetheless I was hooked.

I frequently find business writing compelling for several reasons.  I want to be a good employee, and if it’s in my cards in the future a good employer or manager.  I also think that there’s something fascinating about the way that business writing hovers between applied anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics.  I guess the third reason I find business writing compelling is that the people doing the writing know that they’ve got to be compelling, so they generally relate interesting stories, make clear assertions about those stories, develop catchy ways to remember their information, and keep it brief – in other words, they write to be compelling, and the good ones succeed.  Oh, and generally, they don’t go off on tangents like this.

That first reason, though, was what I first thought of when I read the case today.  I saw some similarities between the situation described in the case and my own situation at work, and thought that I might adjust the way I was considering certain parts of the situation.  I also thought that I might be more sensitive to some of the things the case brought to light in my job search.

Then, I thought about that job search, and how this whole internal discussion I’ve had about taking advantage of the downturn to do something more innovative and interesting totally reflected the attributes of the Gen Y thinking presented in the case.  I realized that part of my hesitancy in pursuing that kind of new “job” or whatever it would be that would make living possible as I was doing awesome architecture stuff that was good for people and the environment and let me draw and build and talk to people – that hesitancy comes from my uncertainty that Gen Y thinking is all that good at making stuff in the real world.  It seems clear that it’s got some benefits – open source techniques work for my friend who makes shoes and for some of the bike companies I admire greatly.  Certainly Gen Y thinking is effective in the realm of ideas and technology.  Yet I wonder if Gen Y thinking, as outlined in the article, is compatible with building things, which takes a long time, requires a lot of players and investors, and is meant to last a long time, too.

Here’s the thing.  Part of me is on board with the revolution.  I’m ready to use better platforms to collaborate more effectively.  I’d like to keep drawing by hand, to keep talking in person, but I also think we’re on the verge of having way better modeling software – software that incorporates more of the benefits of hand drawing while it dramatically increases the ability of the modeler to make excellent, easy-to-construct building – and I think that videoconferencing will become more accessible, but more to the point, hard and software will improve our face-to-face meetings, helping us record our thoughts better and launch from those thoughts more effectively.  I also think that design must be at least partially open to the crowd’s influence if it’s going to be relevant, and I think things from coordinating construction to monitoring energy use will all transform in positive ways if we think about them differently.

But part of me thinks that there’s something to be said for putting in your time and going through the established routes.  There is something essential to me about knowing the fundamentals.  And even as I write this, I realize that in some ways, it’s knowing the fundamentals and being tied to those “proper routes” that loose us the ability to look at problems freshly, to hear the voice of the novice that revolutionizes the game.  Fundamentally, I think the same thing is happening in architecture as in environmental change – the status quo is difficult to disrupt.  Building codes and contractual setups change slowly, protecting us from rash decisions, but they can also stymie valid change.  With environmental change, the political and physical obstacles are deeper and wider, but again, they slow change that we can envision, even if we have difficulty implementing it.

Anyways, in the end, I wonder if us Gen Yers, with our impatience; disrespect for pecking orders, lines of authority, and proper protocol; need for feedback; with our life experienced through machines and need for entertainment and instant gratification, I wonder if we can really make great things.  Will our things forever be left unfinished?  Will they be two-dimensional?  Will they speak only to the now?  Or, will they be made faster and better by people who have more time to spend with their families and friends, by people who find that their work is fun and rewarding and challenging, and who tell each other when they’ve gotten it right?

I also wonder if there even is a real, measurable difference, or if it’s just the idealism of the young rubbing up against the conservativeness of the old, dressed up in new phrases, with the specter of technology floating around to scare us all a little.

Well, that’s not where I thought this would end, and not even close to what I thought I would say, but it’s time for me to get off the couch before the day ends.  I’m glad that spring is coming here, complete with adorable little birds at my window, and I hope that it brings even a tiny bit of resolution on the pressing matters in my mind.

A Strange Place

Here are a few things that are rolling around in my brain:

Accumulation and accretion, with the world just getting more and more full of things. And then, the passing on, too.

Desire becoming reality, and other things also becoming real – with my growing perfume collection, I am sampling many scents, and sometimes feel as though there’s something real there. When I taste wine, I often get very physical words coming to my mind – wine for me can be round, soft, or tall. I’m not getting that the same way with perfumes, but I think that if I smell for long enough I’ll be able to articulate things a bit more. I’ve been enjoying the strangeness of them, the leather and sweat and smoke. My favorites are the ones that surprise you over and over again, making you think that there’s a corner somewhere close by that you’ll turn and find something real. The one I’m wearing right now, though – Patou 1000 – I lean in to get a deeper draw, and it smells like someone peed on me. Weird. I can’t get enough from 5 inches out, but right up close, whew! Yet, I’m going to put a bit more on before I go out.  Wherever that corner is, it’s a strange place.

Plus, trying on all these perfumes is probably just a little bit of an intensification to that who am I and what am I doing here feeling that I haven’t been able to shake, even when for a little while, I thought I might have that answer. Today I was useless, and far from figuring out any answers, I just avoided the question altogether. Thought I was making some progress, but still pretty lost on the whole subject of what to put the majority of my energy into. I can’t help but think, though, that at some point this question will be answered, and that a bit of psychic reworking never hurt anyone in the long run. Watching a lot of the videos at the99percent.com has/hasn’t helped.

The conversations that we have with ourselves – I saw Moon last night, and that little phrase kept rattling around in my head.  It’s a must see, and I felt like it was perfectly resolved, despite what many of the reviewers said at the time.  It made me very sad, but then, I also felt very appreciative afterward.  I imagine that’s a part of what I liked about A Serious Man, too.

I’m heading out, and already running late.  I’ve been thinking of several of these things for a while, now, though, so had to get a little ramble out.  No doubt you’ll hear more about perfumes, accretion, and life courses soon, whether or not you wanted to.

Oh, and props to the President for a sweet speech on Wednesday, and for finally having what NYT liked to the Prime Minister’s Question Time, (the reference to which seems to have disappeared from this article) which I have always hoped would happen in our own country.

Who are these buildings anyway?

I’ve been reading Sweet Juniper like it’s my job, and I just had a realization while looking at this, and also thinking about what my mom said the other day.  I’ve long thought about writing about buildings, and I know that I’ll do “real” writing about buildings like I did in my Architectural History classes.  I’ll write about the way that light enters a room, I’ll write about the juxtaposition of materials, I’ll write about the spaces they enclose and the spaces they occupy.  But I also want to write building fiction, and I think I know a little more about that now.

These days, we talk in our profession about how buildings should be built to last.  How they are investments, or ways of sharing our values across time.  We say, or the Europeans say to us, that in Europe, you don’t build with the idea something will come down, you build so that it can stay up, even if it needs patching and fixing.  Buildings are bigger than us, and I think that it makes sense that they would have a longer life span than us, the same way very large trees and whales and elephants do.  And, they’re even less able to care for themselves than plants, which are immobile but have some pretty kick-ass ways of feeding and repairing themselves.  So, as long as we’re in a symbiotic relationship with buildings, we keep them warm and weed-free, and they keep us safe and dry.  But, they also observe us in a way we sometimes notice, and they watch each other and the part of the world that they can perceive (I don’t really believe that real buildings do any of this, these are now my fictional buildings, and maybe, a little bit, what I’d like real buildings to do, too).  They are our memory keepers.  But, I think they’re memory keepers that keep the full experience within them.  A photo album is full of snapshots, a treasure box full of the little objects, but a house, it’s inhabited by ghosts, and those ghosts are both what is good in life and what we would normally like to forget about in life.

So, I think that’s what these buildings in my stories, whenever I may eventually write them, will be – the keepers of the ghosts, the large and sort of helpless, but intensely wise by the time that they’re abandoned, beings that see everything that we do, all the objects we cherish and the arguments that we have and the plants and animals that we don’t really understand, and the way that we’re mostly confused, and keep most of their opinions to themselves.  Maybe that’s a little why we get sad when we knock them down, even when we know they have to go – we know they’ve seen a lot and have stoically endured it.

What my mom said – “It seems as if for most people, like myself, buildings once created become things, possibly very lovely and appreciated things, but still things, whereas for you, buildings once created become creatures, beings, alive and organic and able to act upon other creatures, interact with them being to being.”  What do these ones think about us?  Do they miss their neighbors?

Putting things out there

Warning: next three paragraphs deal with the intractable issues of work and social life.  For something actually interesting and new, skip to the photo.

I don’t know how long it’s going to last, but for quite some time to come, I think my main job is actually putting myself out there.  It’s actually been a lot of fun to put together the portfolio and teaser and resume…and I’m sure the cover letters will be fun in hindsight, too.  Now we come to the part where I actually send them all out, though, and that’s a whole other story.  I’m less than excited to send them into the abyss, to ask for jobs that don’t exist and to profess how wonderful I am to people who can’t really care.

I can’t help but feel a reflection of this work life issue in my personal life, too – I may know all sorts of people here, but I’ve yet to rebuild a group of friends of the sort I had in Oberlin, Vermont, or, in fact, that I pretty much developed here, pre-graduation.  Not to mention that there’s a good chance that I’ll move to a whole new place and actually have to make an even bigger effort towards friendship than I do here now.

I’ll admit, part of it is a problem of commitment.  I’m not sure where I want to move, not sure what I want to do, not sure who I want to spend my time with, so in some ways I’m not making a strong case to anyone, let alone myself.  Howard’s recommendation of actually writing out a five year plan or two seems like a great one.  I vaguely know where I’m going and what I’m doing, but defining things a bit more, while having an alternative plan, seems like a good way to stop faffing and actually move confidently towards doing the things that I want to do.  I feel like I’m back in high school with all this self definition and worrying about who I’ll be friends with.  Thought I was over all of that.

On another note, I saw this today:

Along with five other lamps, it’s part of an impressive graduation project, Light Movement, by Noam Bar Yohai.  Each of the lamps employs wood, elastic bands and heat-shrinking tubing, with metal components to weight them.  They are each adjustable because of the friction of the tubing, weight of the metal, tension of the elastic bands, or flexibility of the wood.  I think Yohai has done an excellent job of exploring this object as a series of mechanisms.  For me, they come to a pleasing level of refinement – they seem like abstracted models of joints: skeleton, sinew, muscle, and nerve poised before some action.  Tell me what you think, and perhaps, if you’re ambitious, compare and contrast with Moooi’s Brave New World lamp.

Going Grey

Not me.  I just returned from Greenbuild, which was in Phoenix, and hopped off the plane at Portland.  I’m visiting Sasha, who’s got a new blog, but who’s been sick since she arrived here.  We had a lovely time last night eating lentil soup with Kyle, Adrienne and Sean, and a delicious breakfast this morning with Sean and Adrienne.  But, after walking around a bit, I have determined that Oregon has gone grey.

I’m ok with that, but I kind of wish it hadn’t happened while I was gone.  It seems too abrupt.

We stopped in to Bolt and Close Knit briefly, and I think we’ll see A Serious Man this afternoon.  It’s the kind of day that you want to watch movies and be surrounded by soft warm things.  I’ve always enjoyed getting away from the cold in December when I visit home – for me, being away from Florida is the only way I’ve learned to appreaciate it.  But, missing those few critical days, I am sad to come back and find myself in winter.

Although some things at the conference were, frankly, a waste of time, I think that overall it was quite worthwhile.  Despite the fact that I didn’t show my portfolio to anyone, I did get the sense that if I pursue a job with some intensity, there are jobs to be had, and also showed me again that the route I take might not be so straightforward.  I am very glad to have finished my portfolio and updated my resume in time for the conference, since it frees me up for time for other projects.  I’ll be working on a new skirt this week, and I’m also going to start learning a 3D modeling software.

We’re about to head out, but photos of Phoenix will be up soon!

You can write, but you can't edit

I was walking down the street the other day, when my bike had a flat. It’s almost unheard of that I’d make the walk in to work, since the bike ride takes just about 10 minutes. However, at this time of year a morning walk can be really wonderful. There are puddles and sunshine and there’s that good old crisp fall air. In a poetic mood, I drafted this poem in my head:

The trees grow from golden pools
or red skirts dropped to their ankles
in lust last night

And immediately thought of posting it to my faceybook page, where just the night before I had posted:

The late night laundry/agitates in the basement/soap in a dark tub

and

warm from the dryer/knits, delicates, and denim/so many colors

As I believe I’ve mentioned before, I generally believe that the poetry that I write mostly in my head doesn’t do so well once it’s written down, and even those verses that translate to physicality fairly well don’t always last for me. Almost as soon as I had written the little tree ditty down, I realized that what sounded lovely in my mind was really trite/derivative/uninteresting. Nice to think, but not so necessary to share. (I do realize the irony here.)

On that line of thought, and what with walking into work, where all I do all day is edit, I pondered for a moment the fact that much of our communication these days is unedited. I imagine that was always the case – kind of like buildings that were designed by architects, communiques that were edited must only make up a small portion of documents, and an even smaller portion of all communication. Kind of interesting to just ponder for a moment all the communication in the world. But, I digress. While this has always been the case, now we proudly share these mostly unedited thoughts in a public and fairly long-term manner. I don’t wish to make this another post about the problems of our modern world, but I couldn’t help but thinking that editing is sorely missing from our world. I am excited and interested by our vast new opportunities for self expression – I’m here, aren’t I – but I wonder what we loose when we don’t review, rewrite, and on occasion, censor ourselves. In particular, what are the political implications to this manner of comporting ourselves?

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On a different note, I’ve failed recently. I intended to write something wonderful for Blog Action Day, and to participate in 350.org’s giant day of climate action. In fact, I begged off the first one and casually ignored the second to go watch a Ducks game. If I’m not taking climate action, who is?

I have succeeded, on the other hand, in enjoying life a good bit more than I was before. I’m sewing and making other projects. I am cooking delicious food, going out with friends, reading books, and actually finishing my portfolio. I’m trying to capture the lovely sunny moments before it all goes grey for months on end.

****

A final note on two recent Harper’s articles: this month’s Notebook and September’s article “Dehumanized.”

In this month’s notebook, entitled “The Cold we Caused,” Steven Stoll returns to the theme Mark Slouka wrote about in September. Stoll sums up Slouka’s position quite well, despite the fact that he’s applying his criticism to climate change rather than what happens “When math and science rule the school.” Stoll says, “By confirming the human role in climate change, and by declaring a warming world injurious to the public good, the EPA has swung a club against perhaps the grandest capitalist conceit of the twentieth century: that society forms part of the economy, not the other way around.”

On reading Dehumanized, I was certainly convinced by Slouka’s statement that we cannot forever argue for the humanities based on an economic basis, but that we must be able to find other values useful in our society. Slouka’s call for a return to the civic, the political, and the societal concern struck me as important, but difficult to undertake, as any paradigm shift is. Yet while reading Stoll’s article reinforced Slouka’s position, it also made me consider that this argument seems particularly applicable while our economy is in shambles. I wonder to what extent the downfall of the economy influenced this perspective, or revealed this truth, and to what extent that same downfall might allow us to approach these seemingly intractable problems in a different way. Could there be some sort of progress on these matters?

Blog Action Day

It’s blog action day, and I don’t have much to say. I know that I really should say something, especially since it’s about climate change this year, but I’m kind of drawing a blank. So, um, can I take a raincheck? Thanks.

27

I am now 27.

I just fell in love with the BurdaStyle website, and especially the Ellen pants, which, should I ever get to make them, will probably be disappointing since I’m not a stick thin/5’10.” Working my way up to that, and looking forward to sewing again.

First phase of the project is almost done, so work is coming along. Portfolio is coming along more slowly, but progressing. I have a new layout that’s a bit more clear, but I’m still working on how to get some of the spontaneity of the old one in there. The projects are developing into better stories the more I work on them.

Sasha’s visit was wonderful, and I’m looking forward to her moving up to Portland.

Many more plans and thoughts. Finished Howard’s End, reread The Diamond Age (again), and started Rebecca.

Also, I put up the last year’s photographic highlights on my Flickr account.

Mail Room

There’s a rumor going around that Eugene is going to lose a post office.  Not just any post office, but the one I go to, University Station.

No big deal, right?  There are other POs in town, even quite nearby.  In fact, I now live closer to the main station than to University Station.  No one is going to be prevented from sending and receiving their mail, in no small part because, as Obama recently reminded us, there are many private companies now willing to take part in that transaction who are “doing just fine.”  Yep, “it’s the post office that’s always having problems.”

Be that as it may, I would be greatly saddened if University Station is closed.  Fundamentally, I think that every university should have a mail room.  In fact, it surprised me to find that the University of Oregon had a post office, not a mail room, when I arrived, but I guess there’s a matter of scale that makes the mail room at Oberlin viable, and that at Oregon a post office (Though perhaps the problem lies somewhere in that inequality).

The mail room of a university or college serves its students tirelessly, providing a stable address for those orbiting campus.  It is a place for paying first bills.  It’s where really good things happen when you’ve been away from home for a while – a care package arrives, or just a postcard, when you thought you had been forgotten.  It’s a portal to a place far away.

Amongst the little cubbies or up at the window, you have the sense of really being in a physical place.  You see the postman heft a box of letters dropped into the slot for the 1:45 pick up.  You’ve written on paper with pen, folded that paper, tucked it into an envelope, and licked the envelope closed.  Now you lean against the counter with the envelope in hand and ask for stamps.  You look in the folder proffered – you select from the objects at hand.  You’ll drop your letter in the empty box, they’ll wheel it out with the 5:30 mail.

Perhaps it’s a relic of things past, but I think that’s why it’s so valuable.  There’s no scrolling through options, imagining the shapes and sizes and weights of things.  Here, things are measured, they’re displayed in their corporeality.  Keys are turned and doors are opened, objects are filed and sorted.  That’s not to deny the electronic scale or scanner, but it is to say thanks for the man behind the counter, wearing his blue ringer polo shirt, affixing that label to that package.

I think students need to have a place so connected to objects, since many times they’re living a life so overstuffed with ideas.  They need a place that is neutral in the way that government places are; where freedom of speech is practiced in a dramatically different way than in their classrooms.  They are lucky to have a place devoted to their physical connection with those far away, and a place that so effortlessly combines responsibility and spontaneity.  When all of that is at the heart of campus, it becomes an important place for chance meetings or reality checks amongst the craze of finals; when it’s that convenient it doesn’t take away time from studying or socializing.

Against the realities of the federal budget, my fondness for and belief in the importance of University Station will probably weigh naught.  Yet, for that foreign student, or for the man in the blue polo, I’m hoping that my thoughts are worth more than their weight.

Returning, Moving On

I’m going to write something because I’d really like to return to blogging, but I’m out of practice. At a point, life just got too complicated to tell about. It’s not that the plot was so convoluted, more that the characters all got a little out of hand. But, we’re beyond that now, and in fact, the plot has also straightened itself out quite a bit.

I am a Master now. Finishing grad school has been a bit anticlimactic. It was wonderful to have the celebration in June, and I do feel done, for real. However, I now feel the weight of the Internship Development Program (IDP) and licensure bearing down on me. I have a job, which I am very happy about both because the economy is bad enough that it’s rare for a recent grad to be offered a job, and because said job is actually interesting and closely related to what I want to do in the long run. However, I’m acutely aware that it’s not a job that can get me closer to actually being an architect, and it’s not a job of the type for which I have been preparing myself for the last three and a half years. So, despite enjoying it, I very much am continuing to wonder, and occasionally actually work towards figuring out, what I will do next.

So, it’s portfolio making time.  It’s time to organize a game plan for applications, to get recommendations in line, and to feel a little untethered from the future, which, as you know, I like to have some grasp on.  All of that is fine: the portfolio is taking shape and I like where it’s going.  The rest I can deal with, and may even enjoy.  But, there’s one thing I’m really struggling with – where to be.  Theoretically, I’m likely to move when I get a job in an architecture firm.  My current plan is to first apply to the set of firms at which I would most like to work, which are primarily in cities on the west coast and in the UK.  Here’s the issue, though.  Rent runs out on the 15th of next month, and I’m not sure what to do at that point.  I will almost certainly not have another job – fine, because my current job will still exist through January.  But, do I move somewhere else in Eugene?  I can, but I’m starting to feel like I want to move on sooner, rather than later, and not move all of my stuff just to move it again.  I can’t really afford to move to one of the big west coast cities on my current salary, though, and that might also end up meaning that I move just to move again.  I could see going home, but what about all of my stuff?  Do I lighten my load of worldly possessions – can I afford to sell everything just to buy more things wherever I do settle next?  And the same goes for moving back to Vermont, which I would love to do, but where I am unlikely to find a job, probably would have to pay some rent (unlike Florida), and where I would be split between friends in Burlington, Brattleboro, and Great Barrington, Mass.  The reality there, too, is that I don’t know if any of those friends have the same spaces in their lives for me as I would like to imagine they do.  Could any of them live with me on their couch/in their kitchen for any significant amount of time?

The likely answer – stay in Eugene.  I’ll move soon enough to a new place, and in the mean time, didn’t I promise myself that I’d spend my time Being Here?

It’s one of those decisions that I keep coming back to, though.  One of those unresolved questions that niggles me throughout the day, in part because it is unresolvable. Since it will be resolved in the next month, because someone else is taking over my house, I guess I just have to live through the uncertainty.  Would that the plot were still twisting, not just aiming straight into the murk.

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On an entirely different note, played at Spawnfest this weekend, which was very good – both fun frisbee and fun time partying/hanging out with the teammates/laughing at Vern Fonk and Bawls and playing 20 questions.  Excited to get into better shape, although somehow I keep missing my running dates and workout times.  We went 6-1, but unfortunately the point differentials on Saturday put us into the B-bracket, so we only took 9th (out of 34? teams).  Read a lot of the Huddle last night in an exited frenzy to get back to being really useful on the field.

a thought or two or three

I’m almost done with this term of school, and moving in to the final stretch of my Masters.  Pretty amazing.

I just read Tim Eagan’s Typing Without a Clue and thought of all of the writers I knew at Oberlin, “trying to say one thing well and true.”  I wonder who will buy a book by Joe the Plumber, and what it says about our culture that his book can be published as a money maker.  To me, if you want to write something for other people to read, you write a blog.  If you have literary ability, if you write about something greater than your opinion and you write about it well, then you write a book.  I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Eagan that we should reward the latter with the cultural status of publication, and I appreciate his suggestion that merit should have everything to do with that decision.

I’m getting ready for Christmas – I just had a good idea for a present, and I’m thinking about my wish list soon.  I’ll hope to update it in the next few days.  I’m also going to look for a dress for Tina’s wedding, which is exciting!

Childhood

Today I had the overwhelming feeling that despite being 26 years old, I am still firmly within a personal era of childhood.  Not a childhood of skipping around on the playground carefree, but one of being somewhat powerless over the circumstances of one’s life.

In this way, it seems that childhood extends throughout our lifetimes.  What does it mean to be an adult?  I have the wherewithal to cope effectively with this powerlessness, despite the fact that it is frustrating and sometimes painful to me.  Hopefully, I also am able to use the shifting ground of circumstance to my benefit, by taking opportunities as they come and seeing the potential in each situation.  Although that’s not the carefree life, maybe it allows me to lessen my cares as I remember that I’m not in charge, nor do I know the ultimate solutions or answers to each question.

In fact, the childhoods we experience transform over our lives, I think.  I have responsibilities now that go beyond keeping my room clean, but I still have this powerlessness, and oftentimes a feeling of vulnerability.  Powerlessness and vulnerability ebb and flow throughout our lives.  So too, I hope that I can say that sometimes I have moments of uncomplicated thought, moments of wonder and joy, moments when someone else takes care of me.  Those moments may come sporadically or infrequently, but they are a part of the ongoingness of childhood.  Now, with those moments, I have an adult appreciation of what I am experiencing.

I wonder, with the gaining of skill and the establishment of a pattern of living that’s not based around the paradigm of school, how the childhood that I inhabit will transform.  I know that in a new job there will be plenty of powerlessness and vulnerability, plenty of moments of discovery, and hopefully an encouraging amount of wonder and help from others.  Does the feeling of childhood eventually melt away altogether, as responsibility and the constant consciousness of thought expand, or does it always remain, even as the thinnest residual film?  Perhaps one day I will be able to answer my own questions, and at that point I will know I’m no longer a child – but it seems to me that day is illusory, and happily so, since the reliance on others we learn in childhood is one of the greatest gifts of that age.

Breaking News

Monday September 1

News today has come of a massacre in the apartment of Rachel Auerbach, a woman friends describe as “nice – you wouldn’t expect this of her.”  Worms in her “beloved” worm bin fled its environs last night in search of a better life, only to dry to their deaths on her kitchen floor.  As she knelt to tend the bin this morning, she wondered at their shapes on the linoleum, only to realize that she knelt in a field of death.

“I had no clue they were so unhappy” stated Rachel in a press conference this afternoon.  “Those worms meant the world to me – literally, I thought that with them, I could do my part to help the planet regain some of its fertility and fecundity.  They worked tirelessly towards their goal, sacrificing every day.  But I guess I just didn’t see the signs.  Fewer mature worms, slower composting…I should have known.”

The remaining worms, of which there were few, had difficulty speaking about the horrendous events of the past week.  “The bin has been drying out for a while now, and frankly, Rachel’s been pretty bad about giving us new bedding.  She’s violated our rights on multiple occasions, and if it were up to us, we would have gotten someone else to tend house a long time ago.  We can’t afford any more time with her in charge.”

The worms have steadily graded down Rachel’s performance on vermissues since arriving under her care in mid-April.  To begin with, they rated her highly, just shy of 100%, saying that “she still has some things to learn, but we trust that she’ll get better with some tough on the job training.”  Last month, they began to seriously organize for change, but they said that despite giving her a low approval rating of 54%, she didn’t listen to their pleas.

Rachel admits to turning away from the worms in their time of need.  “It’s been busy around here.  My plants aren’t doing so well either, and I’ve had a lot of other things to take care of.  But, if only I had heard them, I would have done anything for those worms.  I just did’t really know what they needed.”

A service will be held this evening in honor of the worms.  Steps are being taken to amend for the mistreatment so that any remaining worms will not meet the same fate.