As an introvert, it’s easy to get the feeling that I am watching from the sidelines. I am and I’m not, but because I keep a low-key profile, it’s easy to feel invisible and expendable. Then again, as I have mentioned before I don’t like being the center of attention so invisibility is often my preferred state. But it is also true that I lowkey want to be connected in a meaningful and impactful way. Time out. Did you just notice my use of the latest lingo??? I’m highkey proud of myself that this near fifty year old can understand what my students are freakin saying half of the freakin time! Of course the rest of the time I lowkey just have to look it up…
Back to my point. It’s easy to think that I could just slip out the back jack and nobody would notice. Of course this is crazy talk. We are about to slip out the back jack of Houston and what is in fact happening is everyone is freaking out. Shannon and I have in a relatively quiet way ingrained ourself into the fabric here. As a case in point, we will momentarily be heading out to our world famous Art Car Parade. This is a huge event in Houston. It would be quite easy to be an anonymous spectator in the crowd. That would be our typical m.o. at such a thing. As for art car folks, let’s just say they are more than a bit flamboyant, which is to say the opposite of us. You wouldn’t expect to find us in that crowd. And yet… there we are. We are personal friends with several of the best of them. We have even been in the Art Car Parade, as we pulled Tiny Drop through a few years ago. Today will be a huge celebration not only of the creativity and hard work that has gone into this year’s entries, but also of the network of relationships that we have cultivated here.
It’s slightly funny, because Houston is like the wild west in which autonomy is everything. Houston’s motto might as well be “Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.” Actually, the Art Car Parade is one of our better manifestations of that attitude. And yet, in this extreme quest to be different, to be unrestrained, to be free, what has in fact developed is this intense sense of community. It’s surprising, actually, that such a deep connectivity can be found in this place. Mind you, you have to work for it. But some people do. And I suppose, in a way, that makes it feel more special. There is a paradox of course in all of this. My ACIM (A Course in Miracles) lesson for today says in part this (which I am interpreting for my own digestibility):
“All things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God (the non-reductionist all-knowingness of the All that Is). It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation (all of existence) is the way in which salvation (freedom, joy, enlightenment) is obtained. Yet all we find is sickness, suffering and loss and death. (In truth,) to join with His (the will of the All That Is) is to find our own (will, creativity, freedom).”
Let me explain. This is to say that we find freedom not by seeking independence, but rather by celebrating and cultivating our inherent interdependence. If this seems counterintuitive, think of it this way: love = connection. And there is nothing more free than the pure state of Love.
This weekend I am feeling the love. Also at this very moment the Department of Energy Race to Zero Competition is taking place at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado. My students and I have been a fixture at this competition for the last five years. We have been not so lowkey celebrities at this event having been two time champions. It’s a fierce world-class competition, but you know what… more than that it is a place in which both my students and I have developed some world-class, life-long friendships and colleagues. My two closest academic colleagues, collaborators, and really great friends who make me so happy every time I talk to them, Mary Rogero from Miami University and Jonathan Bean from Arizona, are there right now competing with their students. My students and I are not there this year, for reasons I won’t explain. Mary and Jonathan have been emphatic over the last few weeks that they wish I was going to be there and that they are going to miss me. And I know they are not alone in that. I, for one, am also missing what has become for me a great celebration of generations of people coming together to work for humanity’s salvation. Godspeed to all of those “competing” right now. I know that regardless of whether or not they walk away with a trophy, they will walk away knowing that the work that they are doing in the world is priceless.
Well that was yesterday. The brief update is that this morning Mary’s teams won first place in one division and a best undergrad project in another. My day stated with a huge smile for her and her students! That, and the fact that both she and Jonathan texted me to tell me that they could see the influence of our grand winning project from last year in many of this year’s projects. It’s not often that we get to see the impact of the work that we do. It’s especially rare to get to see it rippling out across the universe. My typical m.o. is to gloss over such things. Not today. Today, I am standing in the grace of the power of our interbeingness.
Last but not least, here is my porch story. Remember my close friends and colleagues who I left behind up at school a few weeks ago because I needed to go home for some self care? One of them is Kathleen English and another Amanda Tullos. Amanda, Kathleen, and her husband Steve Setlzer, have been the core of our green team in Houston. They are all architects, incidentally. We have had a tradition of a monthly brunch on the porch for awhile now. Today was our last brunch on the porch before we go. I so love these people. I love them for their bravery in the face of a city that doesn’t really want to change its ways. I love them for the integrity that they bring to all that they do. I love them for how much they care even though it hurts. I love them for how freakin smart they are in navigating through all landmines toward a viable future. I love them for telling it like it is. I love them for understanding that nothing matters without the cultivation of deep interconnectivity between us. I love them for the love and support that they have given me. I love them for believing in me and standing by me no matter what. I know that this is not goodbye. But it is most certainly a moment to stop and be grateful for all of the parades and porches that have bound us together in love.
