Unmoored

From what I am hearing from people from every which direction, it seems we are all bobbing up and down in a sort of aftershock. It’s like the worst of the storm has passed and as our overtaxed survival instincts go into hiatus, we find ourselves in the midst of the realization that our ship has sunk and we now find ourselves at the mercy of the cold, turbulent water with very little energy or wherewithal to fight the undertoe. Perhaps that sounds dramatic, but I think it is better to speak it out loud, give it the name and recognition that it deserves. The trauma is real. To not acknowledge it is to deny gratitude to our bodies, minds, emotions, and spirits for all of the overtime they have been putting in. 

I, like everyone else that I have heard from, am feeling it. Luckily, I have been super fortunate to have been receiving a ton of reinforcement that validates my experience. Our systems have been overtaxed and it is going to take time for us to recover. In the meantime, be gentle with yourself. Take it slow. Lower your expectations and demands. Be realistic. Nurture, nurture, nurture. Sleep more. Repeat. 

If you haven’t been getting these sorts of reflections on where we are in this moment, please seek out such reflections. Step one is just being aware. This morning Shannon and I listened to Krista Tippet’s On Being podcast interviewing clinical psychologist Christine Runyan. It’s helpful. It puts things in perspective. It reminds us of our very real humanity which begs our attention. Here is the link:

https://onbeing.org/programs/christine-runyan-whats-happening-in-our-nervous-systems/

Or here is another one addressing similar issues by Brene Brown:

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-on-the-queens-gambit-revisiting-ffts-and-resting-our-tired-brains/

That said, I have to admit to not being in great writing shape these days. But I’m not fighting it. I’ll simply be here when and as I can and trust that the tides will change. 

In the meantime, I have to say that this bobbing up and down with the current has proven to be interesting these past few weeks. It’s like this. It’s like knowing that I used to be on this great ship that has been smashed to smithereens and the mission/grand adventure that I was on right along with it. It’s in the past and it isn’t coming back. But just as I come to terms with this idea, some remnant of the ship comes floating by. It’s not just wreckage either. It is, rather, somehow in and of itself whole. Something different than it used to be perhaps, but also still a projection of that old thing into the present and moving on into the future. 

What I am saying is that things change, yes. Sometimes they change catastrophically. However, there is also a wholeness between past, present, and future that can never be undone. Everything that is has always been there and will be there all along. Even though we only perceive a minuscule portion of the All That Is, if you will, in any particular moment doesn’t mean that it isn’t there just the same. But let me give you some examples.

When Shannon and I left Houston and moved to Vermont, it was in no small part out of frustration. We felt we had been banging our heads against a wall that was never going to budge for way too long. It was time to let it be. In truth, we had been making significant progress on that wall, but it is difficult to see that when your nose is right up against it and your head and heart hurt.

One such endeavor was The Fly Flat, the multi-award winning project that my last Race to Zero competition team at Prairie View A&M University designed. We had pushed hard to move that project into PVAMU’s first full fledged design-build project. We had laid all of the groundwork, ensured that the facility in which we would be constructing it was fully equipped to do so, secured community partners, pedaled the project to countless national partners for technical and financial support, etc. But when push came to shove, the university wasn’t ready to take it on and wouldn’t be any time in the foreseeable future. It was heartbreaking. Sometimes the best thing to do in these cases is to just walk away. So we did. We let go. 

No sooner had we moved to Vermont, than the City of Houston got in touch with me wanting to  build the dang thing! A year and a half of red tape and in the midst of a pandemic, the project was finally given the green light. I just issued the construction documents a week ago. It’s not out of the gates yet as what we are attempting to do is not so simple. We are attempting to change the course of affordable housing in Houston. There is a ton more work to be done to try to birth it into reality. That said, I do understand that no matter where it goes from here, it has and will have impact in ways that we may never fully understand. 

Here’s another example. I have mentioned before the Living Building Challenge Studio at The Monarch School. This was the first project to be designed to achieve the Living Building Challenge in Texas. I (Architend) designed it, Shannon (Tend Building) built it, and our good friend Amanda (GreeNexus) handled the LBC certification process. We poured everything we had into making that project a reality- time, sweat, money, persistence, and on and on. Then the school went through a major life-altering administrative transition and what started as an impossible dream drifted back into impossibility. It was heartbreaking. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is to walk away. So we did. We let it go.

A few years ago The Monarch School contacted me to see if they could resurrect the LBC certification. I directed them to Amanda and left them in her good hands. I, myself, remained guarded about it. I wasn’t about to get my hopes up just to be crushed again. So I didn’t think about it. On the very same day that I was issuing the drawings for Fly Flat, Amanda texted. She had just been notified that the LBC Studio had achieved LBC Petal Certification. Even though not the full certification that the building is capable of, this is a massively, huge deal. Redemption. Finally. Elation. Finally. Ten years later, to be exact. 

It is so hard sometimes to deal with grief head on. It’s just too much. Life goes on and we have to find ways to keep playing along. It’s not that I have given up on anything that lies within my vision. I haven’t. I have faithfully kept plugging away at it in any and every way that life makes available to me. I do trust that even when a particular dream doesn’t seem to materialize, it does ultimately come back around in some way that will perhaps be recognizable, perhaps not. I could site countless examples from hockey to architecture to urban planning to regenerative design to personal relations. Every bit of it is still swirling around in this vast ocean, rising and falling just like me. There is something to the letting go, to being unmoored. And when some piece of your life goes floating by, ah… the joy.