growahouse

I have indulged in a 60+ days of relaxation.
“me” time.

I have been well.

Paused, but not forgotten… the digital manifestation of my life…. this site… the magical, musical, place where I write, you read, and we all grow…

So Russell… what do you love about music?
“To begin with……….everything.”

I love this house. I’ve learned so much. I grew the house I live in… but more importantly, I’m growing as a result of it.

I’ve learned to be silent and learned when saying nothing is a beautiful use of negative space.

So my apologies for my absence… but I have not forgotten you.
There is much to discuss

It seems like this week has been a melodious yellow haze.

I guess I could just have easily titled this post my inner Barney Rubble. The point, undoubtedly, is one in which the author feels like he has been driving a barefoot powered vehicle around the last 18 months.

I slept so peacefully last Saturday night… almost as if my bed was made of sunshine and elementary school recess.

The Global House Warming was unimaginable.

There are far too many conversations and experiences to recount them all…

…but here’s a window into the event that symbolized a dream…

A gentle breeze rustled… swiftly tapping some backyard shrubbery against an open awning window. In fact, all the growahouse awning windows were open that day… outstretched and angled like a butterfly… all 21 of them… inviting the most picture perfect weather in recent memory to enter the house as a guest… as a friend. I am reminded that the most efficient mechanical system performance is one in which it remains… off.

Not yet dim enough for a crisp appreciation, a photo montage of the growahouse process flipped from one moment to another, projected on a wall in the basement. As the day progressed to night, the photos would be replaced with a screening of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Both visuals would rest on a wall that stood above 275 square feet of carpet that days earlier rested in a warehouse in NE Washington. Its significance subsequently rests in the fact that months ago it rested in another home… 21 miles away in Vienna, VA. This treasure was salvaged from one home, to give life to another.

Waste not.

As guests would arrive from as far away as California, Illinois, New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and next door… so would smiles, nostalgia, and beautiful plants that radiated with the sunshine as they passed from one caretaker to the next.

Growahouse received 53 plants on Saturday… simply amazing

Laughter was infectious… so were stories. Glances were exchanged from the third floor landing down and out to the courtyard gates in an unbroken gesture. Joyous pride filled beats filled the house and the street like a we had plugged fingertips into speakers and were listening to the heartbeats of a community united.

I spoke to the masses congregated in the courtyard about ecology, family, love, responsibility, stewardship, difficult times, honest realizations, and pleasant progressive thoughts ahead… over a hundred people packed in the courtyard… and front yard… and side yard… with glasses raised and smiles beaming.

It was a green snapshot… a single eco-friendly, socially responsible instant…

…regardless of the shared past or the individual trials to come… we stood shoulder to shoulder as friends in the yellow shadow of this house in this moment…

and we lived it well.

Thank you for believing

I will post a collection of pictures later on this week. If you have pictures from the event, please forward them to growahouse@gmail.com

The world is working in seamless harmony with the growahouse movement.

Tomorrow will be sunny and 76 degrees. I couldn’t have scripted it better.

I made the rounds to my neighbors last night… Telling them that the global housewarming would be tomorrow and that they should stop by… have some jerk chicken… talk the talk… feel the movement

I found myself hammering my new and improved mailbox into its redefined locale at 3:00 AM last night. (Got a chance to break out Angela, my sledge hammer, and give her a couple over the shoulder swings) It seemed to be a fitting task on a mild moonlit night. There is something about the vibe and the potential energy of getting and receiving mail, that says…

“I’m reachable… and I look forward to hearing from you.”

Come one, Come all…

Do we define friendship in minutes, hours, days, years?

I define it in respect.

Respect for how you live your life. The goals you set… the people you choose to share milestones and misery with…the effortless way you greet me… the confidence I feel when I say I know you.

I set a goal with this house project, I reached out for something that I was not certain I would be able to hold onto… almost like chasing a butterfly…almost too delicate to truely grab and hold… so it is constantly IN and OUT of your grasp. It can be frustrating, and overwhelming.

But I have friends.

Some of whom I knew not what incredible level of commitment they would showcase over the last year and a half …. on my behalf… most of which, I still struggle to feel deserving of.

But yet still… I have friends.

And in a quiet hotel room in Tempe, Arizona… one such friend calms his spirit to a whisper as he prepares himself for his own butterfly. On Sunday, a friend and growahouse patriot, Eric, will endure a twelve hour mystical and physical journey into the limits of his abilities as he begins and completes his first Ironman Race.

This Herculean effort is daunting to most, maybe even to Eric…. but like a true growahouse veteran, he will meet it on the battlefield nonetheless.

If I could make the water more buoyant, the wheels faster, or the tailwind stronger…

I would.

Unlike the 450 lb countertop or the impromptu flight of stairs, and despite my strongest desires to help…this is not a burden that I can share with you.

But I CAN wish you well… I CAN think good thoughts for jersey #277…

….and I WILL summon the full breadth of the growahouse spirit and community energy in welcoming you back to its hallowed halls next weekend.

Good luck tomorrow, old friend. Breathe easy.

In reflecting on design decisions… it is often inquired… not just how I did something… but “why?”

“Sustainable”… “Eco-Conscious” or better still “Intentional Living” as I define it, is often much more about the “WHY” than the result. Process is important, mind you… and the end product should to be a hot design and visually well worth the effort, but understand that we are in an era of transition. We are in an era in which the fundamental reason we make decisions has to be rooted in a place that ensures our survival as a species. It’s that serious.

period.

So the challenge, as I saw it, was to start to finish the interior of the courtyard in a way that supports the tenets of the house. Living intentionally means that I believe that if I put the weight of my intellect and passion behind every component of design decisions… the end result should, by gestalt, be exponentially more meaningful.

Process Lesson ONE: Conserving Resources/Identifying Assets

This is the fence that separates me from one of my neighbors. I realized recently that it was, in fact, two fences. His fence and my fence. My fence consisted of a rickety and semi-rotted 5′ tall pickets that ran about 50′ down the side of the house. In addition to being firmly entangled with vines, their nooks and crannies have undoubtedly provided years of safe haven for all kinds of creatures.

For this particular venture, I will let the pictures tell the story.

Reclaimed. Recycled. Reused….. Rediculously hot!

[As always, thanks Doug]

So cheers to my man Al Gore for agressively talking the talk over on the Hill yesterday. The more times politicians are confronted with the ever-present reality of Global Warming, the less evasive they can be in ignoring the obvious.

With that said.

What’s up with you coming to Washington and not giving a brother a call, Al?

I thought we had a mutual admiration thing going on… some professional courtesy… I’m just sayin… we could have gone to Trusty’s and drank beer out of a jar while we compared notes on socio-economic obstacles to embracing a compact florescent lifestyle or the increased salinization of the Pacific Ocean and its effect on low-tier crustaceans.

nyahmean?

I think I started this entry last November on the streets of Denver, Colorado. I had come to the conclusion that my life was way too hectic for me to manage in my current mind state and that trying to manage the madness in “mountain time” was equally as ridiculous. So I’m walking the streets of mile high city and I see a ne’re-do-well couple having an intense argument. It was the kind of argument that made me stop and worry because it looked like it could get violent….. but in my distant and silent anticipation…they were dysfunctionally picture perfect…on mute…they were in the heart of the city quietly and verbally pushing and pulling amidst columns and amphitheatres, and monoliths.

It made me think.….How do we design public spaces?

Do we design for breakups? Do we design for mid-day lunches?… for siestas?….for lunches when she said yes to eat with you outside, and the other person you only invited as a buffer unexpectedly cancelled?… Do we design for chance encounters? Do we design for the “good and the bad”… ?

I walked 4.2 miles last night in my meandering trek home… it was just too nice outside to not keep walking…to not keep moving. I walked across the Sousa Bridge, the Anacostia River breathing heavily below. I stopped midway to look into the black. I noticed, as always, that there are granite benches carved into the bridge, but they face inward… why would I want to look at traffic? I want to look at the river… to feel its pulse and know that it is the life blood of the city that I just traversed….

Can I design for that?

For that late night Anacostia River walk on a unexpectedly warm day in Washington…. for my 21-year old Italian past that slept along the Tiber?…. for an honest early morning reflection of an amazing yesterday while on the shores of the Charles?

Can I design my life to flow with my rivers?

Begat in the depths of NY-DC brotherly cell phone texts and nurtured in the paper strewn cubicles of my office… a conversation has emerged about what type of feast the global house warming will engage. First, there was talk of a CRAB BAKE.

Not really sure what that meant, but convinced that it sounded like a damn good time…the festival seemed to be well on its way to becoming epic.

So then, urged on by a certain moustached gentleman of leisure, who shall remain nameless, but his initials are Wade H. McKinney, IV…. there was talk of a PIG ROAST.

Primal… authentic… hands on…. I like the flare that a spigot roasting pig would bring to this feast…and surprisingly enough, there is a bounty of online info about how to make that a reality.

But some things…. are a little TOO real.

So……. I consulted a local cooking aficionado and she suggested an Open Pit Earth Oven.

Nice. I could use the leftover bricks from the original chimney on the house to line the pit and create the base for the coals and stones that would support a fire fit for growahouse. It’s hardcore and natural, without stressing over PETA stoping by for a “conversation.”

I’m going to investigate this further. This could be something for the ages.

There is a man in Washington Heights, NYC who will want to hear about this. They call him Marvin The Martian.

He bleeds barbeque sauce.

So many may be familiar with the annual Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska. [Shout out to the shorter member of Team San Diego who has this race on her “things to do before I die list.”] Anyway… this past week, for the fifth year in a row, they have had to relocate the start of the race to an area that has “more snow”.

hmmmm…. Alaska…. “need more snow”….. seem odd to anybody else?

Maybe it’s just me.

but whatever… maybe I should just be happy and embrace Spring, right? hmmmm….So… in lieu of more soap boxing about the climate crisis, I will share an important experience I had last night.

…a two hour midnight yoga session.

I will leave the particulars (along with the subsequent muscle aches) for another time. What I will share, however, is that this experience reminded me why I was inspired to build the courtyard in front of the house… and why it’s so important that I finish it. Connection with oneself… connection with myself… is intrinsically tied to connection to the outdoors. It’s who I am. It’s why I feel a little guilty when I pass my mountain bike on my way to my circle saw. I know I’ve been the guy who puts hammer to nail with vigorous persistence… but I’m also the cat that closes his eyes when the wind blows.

The courtyard is the place where brick becomes grass… it’s an in-between melody. I want to go there and feel peace in that transition. Maybe I could do a little yoga out there sometime?

The yoga instructor kept reminding us to choose an intention… something or someone to send our positive energy towards… one that would make me smile…

I know what mine was. But I’m not tellin.