hand washing

It is a rarity, in this personal era of growth and gratitude, when I have the tangible opportunity to show the same type of generosity shown to me in the process of building this dream... growing this house. A week and a half ago, I had such an opportunity.

I was able to paint a friend's basement. Two days... two coats of paint...

I was all too eager to get in there and assist in this basement's transformation. It was the least I could do. A while back, this same friend spent countless hours of time in the bitter cold running hundreds of feet of cable and networking wire through the bare interior walls of growahouse.

His generosity was not about future payback... it wasn't about getting something in return.... it was about sharing knowledge and time. That is the best part of this project.... the sharing.

And as the fall season bid us a fond farewell and we entered into an uplifting, albeit frigid tempered, season of sharing... of giving... of reconciliation.... I found myself on the receiving end yet again.

Last Saturday, another great friend brought me a holiday wreath, with vibrant red berries, to hang on the front of the house.

Growahouse likes to keep things festive.

Immaculee

So I sent my brother a text last night (got no love on the reply) complaining about the work that I was currently enthralled in. I was painting the north wall of the first floor stairwell. It is a tricky maneuver that requires a balancing act on a folding ladder. Granted, it is "technically" safe because the ladder has locking mechanisms to ensure safety... but while you're painting, it takes some getting used to... you know... you have to believe in the ladder... yourself... and in your ability to take short, shallow breaths. So I decide to take a break and I watched 60 minutes.

Man... I saw this story about a woman named Immaculee Ilibagiza She and 6 other Tutsi women spent 91 days hiding in 3' X 4' bathroom during the genocide in Rwanda 12 years ago.

...that’s 12 square feet.

So here I go complaining about my back hurting from the awkward stretching of this human cantilever exhibition I'm starring in... and these women were in a bathroom for three months.... I felt whiny. I felt ... guilty... I felt...unnecessarily burdened by trite circumstances.

And then it hit me... I've experienced this guilt before.... this was it.... this was the adult manifestation of the age-old, guilt-ridden parental staple lesson...

"Finish your dinner... there are children in the world starving."

In other words... There are people going without, so I should appreciate what I have and not waste it.

But in that recognition of the 8 yr old inside me who begot my current emotions, there was a secondary understanding that the lesson was incomplete. I realized instantaneously that should I ever embark on the mystical journey that is child rearing... I will add to the age-old wisdom.

"Finish your dinner... there are children in the world starving... and when you awake healthy and nurished in the morning, they will still be hungry...go fix it."

where everybody knows your name

So I might have mentioned before that I get name recognition at my paint/hardware store down the street near eastern market. Its kinda cool. It makes me feel like I'm part of the family... part of the enclave of folks that home improve on a regular basis, the kinship of characters who live by the code of a tape measure and an uncommitted Saturday morning.

I was there last night to pick up some paint moments before they closed. I was there again tonight.

Why, you ask?

... cause I was in a rush last night and I bought the wrong gallon of paint. Not that it was a slip of hand or that I misspoke at the counter.

I was in a rush. I didn't stop to make sure I had chosen the right color. I just went in with my preset decision and I got what I asked for.

An unrefined decision is as useful as a guess.

Last time I went into the paint store with a less than positive state of mind, I exited with 2 more gallons of blue daisy paint than I needed.

Moral: Respect the place and people who take the time to learn your name. Don't rush, go in angry... or dishonor the space with poor decision making.

one band, one sound

The visual cacophony that was the exterior of the house has now been softened.

It has, in the crisp silent air of an approaching winter, been hushed into a tranquil symphony of analogous pieces.... this newly christened gestalt...this humble collection of yellow splendor.... this vibrant hamlet that, as I stand at the crossroads of the driveway and my destiny, makes my soul sing with an empowered echo like the mountainous canary that shares its vibrant amarillo coloring with my house... our house... the house that love built.

one band, one sound.

The completion of the exterior painting has reinvigorated this small swath of land. It has, in my modest opinion, definitively and resolutely cemented old and new, past and present, hope and truth.

There is strength left in this now fifteen-month odyssey… there is a song that even now, sings fiercely and shakes leaves from trees… shakes bitterness from passersby.

Alas…

There is work yet to be done. There are nails that have not yet been met with thunderous hammer. There are tiles that have not been bathed in shower rain. There are cherry stained timbers that await their introduction to the streetscape. There is work yet to be done.

Yet in the soft calm of an emerging winter, when the sun takes second chair to the white sky, there is now… and hence forward… a beacon.

Thank you for believing.

rocky mountain

I'm back at the greenBUILD. conference. This time its in Denver, Colorado.

In a concise effort to understand the guiding motivation of not just sustainability or architecture, but of our life's passion presented through our work... Architect/Visionary Bill McDonough elequently raised this question moments ago:

"How do we love all of the children of all species for all time?"

My annual sojourn to this collection of likeminded personas consistently puts me into an agitated state of mind. In part, because I want to take the knowledge baton and start running, and conversly because I feel like I've been wasting time not being agressive enough. I would venture to say that it always puts my current self in direct conflict/comparison with my optimal self. This conflict ultimately drains my attention and leads to inaction. It is a weird self-limiting cycle.

The lesson, as I am unearthing, is that my dual selves are not truly in conflict with one another. They are actually two necessary sides of an essential coin... of my coin.... of my present and future... constantly reminding each other that there is work to be done. Work that will require me to be less inwardly focused.

So how do I love all of the children of all species for all time?

rise and shine

Nothing gets the blood pumping at 7AM on a Thursday morning like an hour and a half of exterior painting before you go to work. So here is the breakdown... The weather has been relatively mild for the last week, despite a few rain showers. This provided me with a small window to paint the first floor exterior of the house. Paint needs the minimum average temperature within 24 hrs of application to be about 40 degrees. It's November and today the high temp is 69 degrees (thank you, global warming), so I can't afford to look a gift horse in the mouth.

With the keen input from Manmade, LLC, I decided a while back to paint the masonry and brick of the first floor exterior and courtyard ...... yellow!!!

surprise, surprise.

3rd bowl of porridge

So I ventured out last night to find a watering hole that would welcome me into the election night political scene. First stop, Capitol Hill.

So I dip into a politiki hot spot called Hawk & Dove. 1 minute, 37 seconds later I emerged shaken, but not deterred. It was just WAY too crowded and WAY too monochromatic. I was definitely the sole representative of Team Brown. Make no mistakes, I'm all too familiar with "being the diversity" of any given room of two hundred people, but this crowd was just WAY too rowdy and aggressive. It was not a pleasant vibe. Granted, this is capital hill, so they had Election results blaring, charts and diagrams, big screens with talking heads talking their heads off.

It was DC on Election Night!! You can't get that anywhere else.

Second Stop.

Still in Capitol Hill, I dip into this spot called Pour House.

Take that first experience and multiply it by 2. Needless to say... I spent all of 42 seconds in there and I was homeward bound.

Third Stop.

Not to be defeated, after a quick bus ride, I went with an old favorite... Trusty's. Not too far from home, this spot is always tame and relaxed. There were three non-profit type women at the bar and me. It's the kind of bar that you could imagine being a regular in... Assuming that you are looking to be a regular in a bar.

They weren't even playing the election on the TVs. These cats were watching Seinfeld and some basketball game.

Nice.

"Hey barkeep, you mind switching the channel on one of these screens to the election.... oh and uh... Can a brother get a half smoke w/ onions sautéed in Bourbon while I check these stats online?

Nice.

get your vote on

I, as I'm sure many of you did, exercised my voting ability this morning for the midterm congressional elections.

I slept at my parents’ house last night and voted in Maryland. I haven't "officially" transferred my permanent residency to DC and I decided that today would be a good day to end my civic responsibilities to the Crab State on a positive note.

What is unfortunate is that moving to Washington, "the cradle of democracy," means that I no longer have a say in National politics.

That is not cool.

DC is all about taxation without representation. I can vote for local politics... mayor... school board... but other than that... and the presidential election...

I got nuthin.

Anyway, it is my hope.... nay.... my intent... to find some political hot spot watering hole to hang out in tonight and watch the election results come in. It’s an important night for the city... there are a lot of vested interests at stake with the power structure in congress and I'm gonna watch it go down.

not for you, darling

From the desk of growahouse... A letter to the "angry" woman on the bus last Tuesday.

At first I thought that your anger filled words about the city's changing demographics were the mere rants of a mad woman... the unabridged, volatile cursing of an irritable, misaligned, urban heretic...

In retrospect, it was a protective instinct in my subconscious that kicked in and inspired that opinion. I wanted to protect the over packed bus riders from your verbal assault... to protect the school age Halloween costumed youths from a bad example of how to engage society... but ultimately to protect myself from having to acknowledge that your poor delivery, does not negate the importance of your message.

In this city's the path of change, there are casualties. Those casualties are not numbers, percentages, nor forwarding mail addresses.

They are people.

They are you.

The influx of wealth to your Washington neighborhood, will probably mean, as you stated, that you will be pushed out of your home. I don't know what form that push will take. It may be economic through property taxes, rent hikes, or physically through new construction. It might just mean that the 1.2M condos on your corner with the Harris Teeter on the first floor will attract more people that aren't like you and you will be culturally alienated. I don't know.

What I do know is that people have more potential to grow and learn in diverse environments. I believe that your neighborhood will benefit from having the full gamut of incomes and cultures represented. Granted, that may not be what happens. Your neighborhood might flip from impoverished to wealthy over night, become a high end monoculture, and miss the boat on diversity all together..... but let's just say it doesn't. Let's say it becomes a diverse social/economic Mecca for various Washingtonians, old and new.

It still might not be for you, darling.

And I think that amidst a bus ride of stingingly inappropriate epithets, that was your message. Not that any type of change was inherently bad, but that any type of change... would be your undoing.

Your pain is not necessarily about the train that's coming... it's about the fact that you don't have a ticket. That is a lot to manage and I can barely imagine how I would respond in your place.... how I would respond if I felt overlooked by everybody around me... even everybody on this bus... ....perhaps I would shout so people would pay attention.

You might have difficultly expressing yourself, but you're not crazy.

I understand that now.

the movement

Far and wide, in cramped closets and moving boxes... in locker rooms and oak dresser drawers... beneath button downs and lab coats... small, medium, large, and extra large statements of support rest in the form of the official and now publicly available...

Growahouse T-Shirts

Check out the growashirt tab on the right to find out more about how you can get yours!!

all hallows

I bought two bags of candy to be prepared in case any crumbsnatchers come around tonight looking for their next sugar high. ...in the interim, I also worked on a little Growahouse Halloween postcard to keep things festive.

Enjoy the day

no fear

I took a shower on Friday in the third floor bath.

This was a monumental moment for me.

The tiling had been nearly finished for the last week or so, but something didn't feel right... I just wasn't ready to test it out... I just didn't feel like I had the right energy and I wanted my first shower to be worthy of the work I had put into building it.

But then Thursday night I had a dream. It was the latest installment of a series of reoccurring dreams that I've had for a while now and I awoke feeling great... feeling peaceful. I'm not sure if it was the dream, the restful sleep, or some combination of the two, but I shot out of my bed like a champ... like the sun shining through the window was just for me.

I rounded the corner and leapt across the threshold of the shower, turned that bad boy on, and slipped into bliss.

Needless to say... I'm Back!!!

So over the next few days, I will be adding several new tasty photos and diatribes about my comings and goings. Sorry for the dip in moral, but have no fear.

The master builder is back in the building. Holla at your boy.

deep breaths

So life has been passing me by lately... well... up until now. The blogs have lessened... the picture uploads have all but stopped... and I was continuing on a path of ill-conceived notions about what I was capable of.

I'm tired. I'm just tired.

Long gone are the days of full time job during the day, part time carpentry at night. I started my downhill decent about a month ago and now I am reaching out into the darkness for power bars of truth about where I am in this process.

Where I am.

Where I am is a very fluid concept right now. Last Thursday, I was on my way to nowhere in a hurry. I'm laying on the floor in my bedroom, red pen in hand... two sets of drawings from work sprawled across the cork. I returned downstairs to answer a late night doorbell ring.

Who's there, you ask?

It was Paul the gardener. Having reunited with Paul after the hedge-trimming incident a few months back, Paul recently aided me in reclaiming my overgrown property line from my neighbor and thus he stopped by to receive payment for a job well done.

Paul has no concept of time, as evidenced from his late night visits. (Including a midnight lawn raking scenario in early summer) But nevertheless, he arrived with his rottweiler, Sheeba. I stood there, talking to Paul and eyeballing a noticeably irritable Sheeba and it was then that I realized I wasn't as motionless as I felt. Things were happening. People and places were evolving around me and ..... and....that was okay.

Its just different when I'm not the puppet master... the master builder... the contractor... the architect... the visionary. It's okay sometime to just be the neighbor.

I feel like I'm rambling, yet the retelling of this sequence of events is seemingly therapeutic.... so the question comes to mind.... who am I really writing for?

You or me?

public policy poetry

Lunchtime yesterday was a refreshing change from my usual peanut butter and jelly on wheat. I attended the Washington DC Economic Development Partnership Expo at the DC Convention Center. For the most part, it was suits and smiles, handkerchiefs and handshakes. The intent of such a meeting is to gather all the players in the current and future economic growth of the city under one roof for a couple of hours... let them talk and network... entertain and feed them... and then go home.

I was fortunate enough to have two delightful experiences back to back. The first was an inspired lecture from Richard Florida.

I am very familiar with Richard's work, which studies the need and methods of harnessing human capital in urban environments. The Creative Class, as he defines it, is the conglomeration of diverse peoples with diverse skills in a given metropolis and how that critical mass is the most powerful engine of creating phenomenal places to live, work, and grow.

Even back in Pittsburgh, he was always a bit of a rock star in the otherwise dry realm of economic development. Yesterday, he did not disappoint. Having moved from the 'burgh down to DC a few years ago... his insight on the climate of Washington was fresh and inspiring... I believe that I will write him a letter and tell him about the house progress. I am going to need some advice as to the next evolution from growahouse to growavillage.

The second takeaway from the meeting yesterday was a young spoken word poet that graced the stage after Richard's lecture. She had a line that stuck with me and I feel it is worth while repeating.

"I realized that I have to change the way I look at things until the things I look at change."

nice.

300 plus

As many are aware, this morning the US population crossed the 300 million marker.

Insignificant to some, ominous to others.

While watching TV last night, I was reminded of an ongoing joke I have had with folks at my office for the past few years in which I tell everyone to make their kids take Mandarin classes. I say this because I have been closely following the unprecedented industrialization of China and its 1.3 Billion people.

While I build a house, and while many of you look at buying homes in new small communities in Everywhere, America...

China is building cities.

Yes, I said "cities" plural... like 50+ of them. 40% of the worlds construction. Imagine 50 new Washington, DC's in 10 years.

Anyway, as we mark this monumental occasion in which we are celebrating mankind's unchecked population dominion over the world, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a great friend several months ago...

Me: China has to be unrelenting in pursuing sustainable, environmentally sensitive, and energy efficient strategies as they industrialize their nation.

Friend: Oh I see... They really have to be mindful because they are all going to be in dense urban environments and since they have a lot of people moving in from the countryside, they have to be green in their approach or they’ll be kinda screwed with pollution, and energy costs....

Me: No, no, no.... that’s true... but there is more to it.... We have spiked the world’s population in the last 50 years and put a strangle hold on the global immune system... we are all connected now....

If China doesn't industrialize sustainably....

...we are all screwed.

city limits

My train came in at about 3:00am this morning. I had an eclectic matrimonially abundant weekend in New York. It was refreshing. What wasn't refreshing was my difficulty catching a cab from Union Station over to SE Washington. Granted, I might have been overly naive at the notion that my metropolitan attitude, travel methods, and corduroy blazer were enough to transcend the whole being a "black man trying to catch a cab thing."

I felt like I was back in high school (three blocks away) at a friday night mixer in the gymnasium asking some girl to dance with me... asking her to pick me... subconsciously asking her to acknowledge that I was good enough... asking to be judged... sowing the all too common adolescent seeds of self loathing convinced that if she didn't chose me, it was my fault.

My first mistake was walking across the street from the station because the crowd waiting for cabs was way too long. In retrospect, the credibility of the Train Station would have helped me out.

Across the street...I waved. I pointed at over a dozen empty cabs. When the few drivers that bothered to slow down leaned out of their windows to ask my destination, I tried to make my home sound more "Capital Hill South", less "Southeast Propper." It was an exercise in futility. Finally, I stood in front of a nice hotel down the block in an attempt to seem like I was a guest. It was oddly successful.

Oh... the best part... I went into the hotel to get the phone number for a cab company and the concierge told me (through the door, cus opening the door would have been way too polite) that everybody was asleep and that I wouldn't be able to call a cab, so he couldn't help me.

What?

I just need the number, dude. I'm not trying to rob you...

Did you not see the corduroy blazer?

aloe-ha

I recently got some new house guests. A friend is planning a move from the east coast to the west coast and needed to find a new home for his plants that would not be making the cross country trip.

As is turns out... he as been maintaining a veritable forest in his apartment. So last Sunday, he came over with a minivan full of plants. Big plants, little plants, cacti, vines, giant aloe plants.... it was madness.

So I got four new plants that I have been tending for the last 8 days with friendly green thumbed hospitality.

They seem to be enjoying their eco friendly environment and are adding a nice splash of color to the second floor kitchen niche.

elderberry excellence

Where do I begin? It took me a week+ to post this because I wanted to collect my thoughts and not undervalue an exceptional experience I had last Friday.

442 miles north northeast... a package, prepared in modest human kindness, left the hands of a stranger... now a friend... bound for this humble hamlet.

The story begins with a phone call from a good friend that I had lost contact with. The funny thing about maintaining friendships is that I used to think that it required both people to be equally invested in the relationship at all times.

not so.

Sometimes one person has to hold up both bottles of soda while the other one ties his shoes. Nevertheless, this friend has a friend that he recently introduced to the growahouse movement.

But let me not digress.... back to the package.

The friend of the friend, sent me a box containing 4 jars of organically grown jellies from her fall harvest accompanied by an impassioned letter signed eloquently...

..."from one global neighbor to another."

A few days out of town coupled with a necessarily hectic work-work/house-work week has left me exhausted... but I have not forgotten about you. I have thought about your inspired/delicious gift continuously.

Foremost... gratitude. I am thankful that our indirect communication compelled you to action. In our lives, we are surrounded with an abundance of potential inspirations... which ones if any will catalyze us into action? I am also grateful that your momentum reconnected me with a good friend. (evidence of the collateral effects of kindness)

I opened the fed ex package and I was completely overwhelmed with the simple excellence of your contribution.

Not far from growahouse is a large heavily wooded park with a community garden. I thought before that acquiring a plot might be an interesting opportunity. I am now convinced. I believe that pursuing this organic path will not only give me a tactile understanding of the merits of patiently living off the land counter to a culture of "right now," but it will also be a fitting extension of your positive energy.

I would love to talk to you about what to grow... what fruits and vegetables will nourish the body that nourishes this house?

the return of the siesta

I was treated to a wonderful homemade soul food lunch by a coworker today. "Delicious” would be an understatement.

Nevertheless, as I continue to accept, appreciate, and advocate my internal peace and bio-cognitive balance, I decided that I would indulge the post-lunch urge to take a nap. I returned to my preferred napping park locale and found it to be as friendly and clean as last time.

Lights out.

So as the gentle breeze and whisper of rustling trees above nudged me back to consciousness twenty minutes later... I saw a man feeding ballpark peanuts to a squirrel. The squirrel snatched the peanut and then ran aggressively towards me and started to eat his/her lunch.

An act of kindness from a co-worker begot an exceptional meal... which then led to a bodily need for rest... a peaceful mid-day nap enabled by my mind giving me permission to listen to my body... and I awoke cheerful, not fearful.

Somewhere in there is a lesson about a healthy balance of my body's needs and how responding thoughtfully makes me more apt to be open to the world I inhabit.

I used to live in a city in which siestas were deeply ingrained into the society... that was a good time.

It felt right.

online

I am sitting in my bed watching the Today show, checking my email, drinking a cup of blue mountain coffee, and eating a bowl of Pops with vanilla soymilk. I'm not sure why I felt it necessary to share that, but that’s my story. I spent all day yesterday hanging out with Fred the cable/internet guy.

He walked me thought the steps of installing the cable line to my house and amidst the myriad of stories and life lessons shared... he left me with two quotes that made me smile and I would be selfish if I did not share them with the masses.

In reference to describing a woman with an hourglass figure...

"Her body was cut like a South African diamond."

In reference to a long time ago...

"We go way back like cornrows and car seats."

I have had the rare and fortunate opportunity to interact with a kaleidoscope of people for minutes, moments, milestones... all here in this house. This big yellow house.