Howl

I’ve got the medicine now and hopefully in a few days my ankle will be back to normal. If not, I’m assuming I’ll have to spend the rest of my life with a sore and swollen ankle; I don’t know how these things work.

Yesterday was our day off so a few of the group went into Montpelier (thirty minutes away, where my hospital is) while a couple others and I went into Burlington, which is about an hour away to the north. Burlington is bigger than Montpelier even though the latter is the capital, and Burlington is a really nice town. Still not very big, but it’s got a nice downtown with one of the streets blocked off so it’s a walking streets with stores and restaurants on either side. It’s also right on the edge of Lake Champlain, which is beautiful and surprisingly big. We also went to the Magic Hat brewery, just outside of Burlington, and saw the factory floor and got some really great free beer.

The work is going well and it looks like we’ll get it done in time. Better than the work, though, is the people here. As I’m getting to know the people in my class and the other interns who are around doing work, I’m learning that they’re incredible people and really valuable to me right now. It’s always nice to find people you have something in common with that you can recognize.

Thanks for reading this blog.

I’m on Vicodin now. The swollen ankle I wrote about yesterday got bigger and redder by the end of the day and I decided to take my parents’ advice and ask someone what I should do. I asked one of the interns here if there was anywhere I could go, and then it got made into a bigger deal than I wanted it to when everyone in the class saw it and started freaking out a little. They told me to go to the hospital, so I got a ride from another of the interns and went to the hospital in Montpelier, the closest one at about thirty minutes away (Montpelier, by the way, is tiny and looks like it would be a really cool place to live. Their one main street looked really great.).

At the hospital the doctor diagnosed it almost immediately as a skin infection, which he says I could have gotten from almost anything. Maybe my ankle got bumped and a microscopic cut opened, or something like that. So they gave me an antibiotic drip through a vein on the top of my hand, and a prescription for twenty more antibiotic pills I have to get filled today. They also gave me Vicodin even though I told them the pain was only a one or two on a scale to ten. So now I have valuable, powerful, and addictive painkillers and am probably on my way to becoming a drug dealer because I’ve already had people say they’d take them off my hands if I don’t use them all.

As far as the design/build work goes, all five trusses are finished now. Today is our day off, and tomorrow we’re going to get the rest of the small support pieces put together so that from Tuesday until the end of the week all we have to do is put the cedar planking on it. There’s a lot of cedar so it’ll take a while, but we’re all confident we can finish by the end of our time here, on Friday.

Thanks for reading this blog.

Four out of the five support systems are built and we’ll have the fifth built within the first hour after lunch. The first one went slowly but once we had templates and knew where everything goes the rest of them went really fast. The pieces were all cut last night and stacked so we had them ready this morning, and we knocked out two of them in a couple hours. With thirteen people the work goes fast, although there are times of standing around because there are too many people for the work we need to do right now.

I should talk about the food for a minute. I got on the meal plan here instead of bringing my own food, and that turned out to be the right decision. There are a few people who do the cooking, and about half the time it’s been vegetarian. They have gardens here, so they grow all the plants and herbs needed for the food, and the stuff not produced here at the school is organic and local. Lots of vegetables like cucumber, zuchini, onions, peppers, etc., and even though I don’t usually like those specific vegetables they’re strangely amazing here. The cooks know what they’re doing, and it’s obvious they care about food and health. When we do get meat it’s really great stuff; thick-cut bacon, ham, chicken…I eat really well at home and even though I wouldn’t say this is better than home, it’s definitely different in a good way. Even with all the strange food you might imagine coming from an earth-conscious school in the middle of Vermont, there hasn’t been anything I haven’t liked. The salads all have really good greens, and sometimes edible flowers, and to drink it’s usually water in pitchers with either lemon balm and honey or green plants from the garden steeping in it. They also have a lot of different kinds of teas, which I’ve found to be helpful when we have to wake up early. It’s definitely a slow food kind of place, and if you want more info on slow food read this link for a decent introduction.

Also, just to make my parents panic, my left ankle is swollen and sore even though I never sprained it. I just woke up two mornings ago with it like that, and it’s getting progressively worse, going from swelling only during the day and only sore when I push on a certain spot to swollen all the time and painful all the time. WebMD says either arthritis or heart failure, but I hope it’s neither of those.

We’ve got wood now. All the structural pieces (see yesterday’s post for the exact count and sizes) have been delivered and are out on a concrete pad next to the workshop under a tarp. They’re under a tarp because it’s been raining pretty steadily since the middle of the night last night (or at least I’m guessing the middle of the night; it was still dark when I was woken up by it), and we’ve got to keep the wood dry of course.

We’ve got the structural model finished and ready for referencing, and this afternoon we’re going to start building the trusses. Yesterday we built the jig since all the trusses are the same, and with the chalk lines and blocking in place we’re ready to cut the boards to the right length, lay them down, and build the truss. From what the teachers are saying, it looks like we’ll build all the structure here, transport it to the site in pieces, and then bolt it all together and attach the decking/wall slatting there. I think it’s going to be a good experience to do construction on-site, since we’ll be able to see things that need changing and will be able to change them on the fly without much trouble.

A few words about the instructors: two of them are founding partners of Jersey Devil, a design/build firm that started in the 70s and is still going today with just the three original guys. It’s a small firm and they don’t do a lot of work, but what they do is intelligent, appropriate, and fun. They also do public art every now and then, one example being the iconic Freemont Troll in Seattle. The third instructor runs his own firms in New York and Cleveland; his name is Bill Bialosky and you can google his firms. His work is good stuff too, but not too outrageous. Some of it, in fact, is really beautiful and peaceful. From what I can tell through this first week, all three are kind of the example I’d like to aspire to by the time I’m their age (mid-60s). They work, they teach at Universities, they do good architecture, they have fun, and they don’t take themselves too seriously.

So that’s what’s happening in the class. My cabin is still dry through all the rain, but we have a mouse friend who has a nest of leaves up in one corner where the rafters meet the wall. I saw him run out when the door slammed today, and Paul (my UNCC classmate and cabinmate here) has a couple bites in a loaf of bread he brought, but as long as the mouse doesn’t bother me, I won’t bother it. I believe in a future where mice and humans can coexist peacefully.

We have our design nailed down now and we’re ready to order the lumber and start actual construction of the project. I think we’ve got a really nice design and hopefully when it’s all built we’ll have something good (maybe even capital G good). This morning was spent largely on doing the material count so we know what to order. Doing the business end of things is kind of nice too because there’s no chance to do that in school, and it seems like something a student might need to know how to do.

Yesterday it rained from about three in the afternoon until we went to sleep around eleven, which weighed down the trees, slicked the grass, and cooled down the air. The summer soaking we got during daylight turned into a kind of light foggy mist by the time it got dark, and I walked back to my cabin enveloped in a kind of wet hush. This morning it was cool and the fog was coming down off the mountains creating the valley we’re in, and it hardly seemed like July at all. More and more I’m struck by the beauty and peace of this place.

Here are the figures for our lumber order, sourced from local mills:

structural pieces:
10 count of 2×6x14 feet
10 count of 2×6x10 feet
10 count of 2×6x8 feet
6 count of 2×4x12 feet
2 count of 2×6x12 feet
15 count of 2×4x8 feet
16 count of 2×10x10 feet
2 count of 2×10x16 feet
2 count of 6×6x16 feet, pressure treated
roof deck:
60 count of 2×4x12 feet
side wall slatting:
8 count of 1×4x12 feet
8 count of 1×4x10 feet
8 count of 1×4x8 feet
back wall slatting:
32 count of 1×4x8 feet
floor and bench decking:
120 count of 1×4x8 feet, cedar

Halfway through the first of two weeks things are going well, I think. We’re working with an affordable apartment complex to design them a community shelter. It’s going to be a small structure, about sixteen feet by 11 feet at the widest, and it will be placed in a grassy common area between the buildings near the edge of the lot. It’s going to be made out of wood and a bit of translucent fiberglass on the roof, and we’re going to try to start the beginning stages of construction tomorrow. Because of size constraints on the road to the complex, we’re going to build the whole thing here at the school, take it apart, transport it, and then reassemble it on-site.

We’ve been doing all group work so far, which is always hard for me because I can tend to get pretty set on an idea I think is good at the expense of considering other ideas. But the groups have been working smoothly, and this is a really valuable experience for me. It’s also incredibly nice to have a real client, an actual budget, and be designing for the reality of what we can build in a week-and-a-half. Plus I think the fact that I’ll actually have some design/build experience when I graduate from architecture school is a pretty great thing. It only makes sense, right?

With regards to the weather and the scenery, it couldn’t really be any more perfect. Being here is absolutely a continuation of the beauty and sense of peace I felt during my two months going out to California, being there, and coming back. I can’t believe what I’ve seen in the past two-and-a-half months when I stop and think about it.

Last night I left the studio around 10:30, completely in the dark. We’re out in the middle of Vermont, with no real towns around, so there’s not the electric light haze I get at home. I didn’t have my flashlight, so I thought I’d wait for a few minutes outside and let my eyes adjust to the darkness and see if I could get back to my cabin in the woods without any light.

There were clouds that rolled in about 8, and I thought there would be a thunderstorm like there was the night before. But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness like I thought they would, I realized the clouds had moved away and the sky was completely and totally clear. After only five minutes I could see more stars than I’d ever seen in my life, and by the time I finally walked back to my cabin, after another ten minutes of just looking up into the sky, I could hardly believe what I was seeing. Every star twinkling, shooting stars, different constellations than I see in the South, and the cloudy band of the edge of the Milky Way. I’d always heard you could see the Milky Way, but I never had before. Not even when I was at the monastery in South Carolina, which was pretty out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere. But here… man, the stars are unbelievable.

I’m in Vermont now, sitting on the front porch of a little cabin in the woods as I write this. It’s beautiful here. Peaceful, green, quiet, primitive. There is a stream behind me, and there are waterfalls which we might go swim at next Sunday when we have the day off. There’s also a swimming hole across the street, which we were told is “usually nude, and more guys than girls.” I don’t think we’ll be hitting that up, I don’t really want to see a bunch of naked dudes swimming around.

After dinner we rode bikes down to the gas station nearby and bought beer. Then we played bocce ball out in the grass, and talked and laughed in perfect weather until it got dark.

So far it seems like these next two weeks will be a continuation of what’s been a really good and valuable summer for me. While I was in California, and especially on the long drives there and back, I had a lot of time to think about what kind of architect, and even really what kind of person, I wanted to be. I think being out here in the middle of Vermont will let me have more of that kind of time.

But for now I am here, I am calm, and I am content.

I’m now in Nashville, my home for the best five years of my life and still home to many of my college friends. We went and played trivia at our old bar tonight, just like we used to every week, and it was like I’d never left. It’s like that whenever I’m back here, and just seeing these people again adds to much to my life. If I’m ever in a rough place emotionally (which I’m not now at all, but if I ever am…), these people are the ones who get me through.

I forgot to write about this last night: on my way through Kansas, I got pulled over for driving in the left lane. Apparently there’s a new law in the state which says you can only drive in the left lane if you’re passing someone, and I wasn’t. The policeman said the law is so new they’re not ticketing anyone yet, just reminding people, but he asked if he could search my car. I just figured it was like the other day, they’re searching random cars in hopes of catching one or two. So I got out and he proceeded to check my car piece by piece, really thoroughly. Another car pulled up and the policeman in that one came over to me and asked if I’d ever been arrested for anything before. I said no, I hadn’t. He said okay and then went over to help the first officer search the car. By this time it had been about twenty minutes and they’re looking through everything. The second policeman then comes back over to me and says, “The reason we’re checking so thoroughly is because the dispatcher says you’ve been arrested for dope and you say you haven’t.” I kind of laughed in surprise and said, “Really? That’s…weird.” He then asked for my social security number to make sure they had the right guy. After they finally finished checking the first officer came over and asked for my social security number again, and he called the dispatcher back. Things were quickly cleared up because apparently the dispatcher had looked up the wrong person. The policemen all had a nice laugh about that while I kind of stood there and waited for them to let me go. When I got back to my car all my stuff was in different places and kind of thrown around, and my computer bag was now sitting on top of my limited-edition Wilco poster from the concert in L.A. Said poster now has a good crease in it. So thanks, Topeka Police Department!

As a more serious topic, the big news around people I know in Rock Hill today was that my old high school was closing after forty years. This wasn’t a surprise for me, since my mom taught there. People connected with the school knew the trouble it had been in the last couple years especially, and I was just waiting for them to finally close it down. The school had been slowly losing students since I went there eight years ago, and in the coming year they were down into the mid-eighties. Even at a tiny Christian school which barely pays its teachers a living wage, this wasn’t enough students to pay the bills.

A few months ago, as I talked with my parents about the trouble the school was having, they asked me if I would send my kids there if I had kids old enough to go. I said I wouldn’t send them there now with the way the school was. By this time they’d cut out all extracurricular activities and weren’t even really offering a full schedule of academic classes. I think, especially for a parent of a high schooler, it would be irresponsible to send your kid to a school like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful for the time I spent there and think it was valuable. I was able to play any and all sports I wanted, was able to sing in the choir and act in school plays, was able to take art classes, and had smalled classes and personal teacher-student relationships throughout my whole education. I think these kinds of things are incredibly valuable, and my English teacher in particular awakened a love of reading and writing that’s served me well in my life. I feel like, with that class especially, I got the kind of education I wouldn’t have gotten in a public school. In my other classes…maybe not so much. Many times the teachers were only teaching a class because the school couldn’t find anyone else, so you might have history, math, or science teachers who weren’t so qualified in the subject. Sometimes you’d get a good one, but the only consistently great teacher I had was my English/Literature teacher. But I feel like that class, plus the sports and arts opportunities I got, made going to the school worthwhile.

But once the school got rid of those extra opportunities, and the English teacher had to leave because of a tragic family issue…I didn’t see what the point was to send a kid to the school. The main selling point was that it was a conservative Christian school, which in the Bible Belt isn’t as much of a selling point as in other areas of the country. The public schools in my town are decent, and supposedly everyone in town is a Christian anyway, so why spend the extra to send your kid to a specifically Christian school, and one with no opportunities for student enrichment, especially in this economy? And that’s what the school closing was blamed on: the economy. And I get that, I understand that the economy was surely a factor.

But I don’t think that’s the only reason. The main reason, I think, was that the school had become irrelevant, unnecessary, and obsolete. The teachers who were still there were the ones who were the ones who really believed in what they were doing and were good at it, so it’s sad for me to see them have to go (especially my mom, who is now very possibly done teaching after more than thirty years of being a really brilliant and caring elementary school educator), but the school wasn’t something people needed or wanted anymore. There were no opportunities for kids to excel at anything, the education level had been passed by the public schools, and the non-essential Christian values the school was holding onto were conservative ones which had been rendered ineffective and in many cases hurtful years ago.

So it’s not surprising. It had been coming for a while, and while my time there was valuable and I feel awful for the teachers who have to try to find a job now, I’m not so sad to see the school close. I was never as enamored with it as some people were.

Right now I’m in Little Rock, Arkansas after driving through the rest of Kansas, into and through Oklahoma, and into Arkansas so I could see a Thorncrown Chapel. I decided to skip St. Louis. Tonight I’m in a hotel because last night was a pretty awful night’s sleep folded up in my car at a rest stop.

Thorncrown is spectacularly great. As I was sitting inside the building I had time to think about how it relates to the Cathedral of Our Lady of The Angels, which I was able to see in Los Angeles. Both are stunning works of architecture and spirituality, and I found it impossible to say which one was better. They are both brilliant in their setting, and trying to switch the buildings with each other would be a horrible mistake. Thorncrown would not work in Los Angeles, and Moneo’s cathedral wouldn’t work wrapped up in the Ozarks. Each one fits comfortably and naturally in its place, and each one is able to bring an overriding sense of spirituality because of this. While the Cathedral is large, dark, solid, and imposing, Thorncrown is tiny, light-filled, transparent, and ethereal. Each is what is needed for its function and in its setting, and both are inspiring works.

I’d never driven through the Ozarks until today; they reminded me a lot of the Piedmont are I’ve gotten used to living in South Carolina. Lush, green, dark, and, as I drove through today, damp. I hadn’t really seen any rain since driving through Dallas two months ago, but as I made my way up the winding roads to Thorncrown today the skies opened in one of those beautiful southern summer storms. The kind where it’s still sunny out and everything gets a really good drenching for an hour or so. Next stop is Nashville for a couple days, and then home for two days before going to Vermont for a couple weeks, but as of today, with the scenery and summer rain, I’m back in the South and that’s a great feeling.