Saturday, May 16, 2015

The Shaft of Decrepitude, and other Musings

WEEK 2

Hmmm -- mostly it was all about digging.   Footings, trenches for utilities, plants....lots of noise and lots of holes everywhere.   Right now, it’s hard to imagine the beautiful transformation we hope for.

Michael (our site foreman), Frank, and Nick - Digging!

SATURDAY, APRIL 18.   Yesterday, Richard (our builder) asked if it would be ok to have the cement trucks come to pour the footings and the pad for Ed’s impending shop.   However much I was looking forward to the absence of noise and chaos, I couldn’t say no to the shop foundation…(you're welcome, Ed).
We rallied and got up early to a cold and cloudy day just as the cement truck rolled in at 0730...Ed has a post-coffee flash of brilliance and says “hey -- we should bury something in the foundations before they pour the footings”.    UMMMM -- this is a great idea, and the kind of thing I like to have WEEKS (or at least hours) to come up with the perfect, symbolic items.   No time.   We grab some dried red chiles from the ristras that hung at our 2012 wedding, and, with a few pangs of farewell, a small carved bear fetish from the bookshelves to guard us from the the footings of our house.   








WEEK 3

TUESDAY, APRIL 22.   10:30 am.  So I am at Michael Thomas Coffee shop in Nob Hill, enjoying a little peace while the cement trucks are (hopefully) roaring at the house, finishing off the pouring of the footings...
THE SHAFT OF DECREPITUDE....
Yesterday they finished digging the our  "shaft of decrepitude"...Really????  We are getting ready to climb one of the narliest mountains in NM on Sunday and we are installing an elevator???? 
Well, yeah...we may be adventurers but we are also realists....some day we may NOT be willing and able to scale those stairs up to our dream view...or some of our friends may not....and it's all about living, and sharing in this space for as long as we can.   Besides, only the shaft is going in now, the elevator can come of and when needed.
To that point, as I sit here looking out on this glorious spring day, I have been watching a lovely young woman - maybe 25 - enjoying her coffee with a friend.  She's in a power wheel chair, she is missing her right leg below the knee, her arms are both withered and largely useless.   She has been sipping her coffee from a straw, monitoring her social connections on an iPad and replying with deft movements of her tongue.  She is animated, engaged - in fact, she is radiant.  I would love get to know her - and to invite her up to the view someday.  

Now the shaft is framed





Ed in the shaft of decrepitude

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