Category: Redacting Rosslyn

Early in our Rosslyn adventure I struggled with how to share the story of our home and lifestyle reboot. As I mucked around, collecting and creating and curating content, I needed a temporary container until I could formulate a better plan. Rosslyn Redux was born. But it sprawled and grew unwieldy, so I met with book editors and agents to pick their brains. Dissatisfied with their advice (more marriage memoir than house/life rehab), I performed a live, one-man show instead. Because, why not?!?! I’d like to try that again. In the meantime I’m still exploring a project that eludes tidy explanation; still experimenting with unconventional, genre-bending storytelling; and still nurturing the sometimes flickering, sometimes flaring confidence that something meaningful and worthwhile will come of all this.

Although Redacting Rosslyn has evolved into a fourth theme, it’s really more of a meta look at our early choice to DIY this home rehab project, my subsequent choice to DIY this storytelling project, and all of the other bizarre developments that have fallen into place since I became as obsessed with how and why to tell a story in this digital age. It’s worth noting that the flavor profile for Redacting Rosslyn differs notably from Wanderlust to Houselust, Archeology of Home, Rehab Ad Infinitum, and Houselust to Wonderlust. It leans more toward indie authors and artists, makers, and the sort of independent (and inevitably stubborn) DIYers who’d rather figure things out for themselves. Think of it as an afterward that so far has evaded completion…

Re-tuning Columns
Rosslyn Redux regulars will be familiar with this multimodal “singalong’s” refrain celebrating the merits of upcycling and repurposing, architectural salvage and adaptive reuse. Well today we hum a new verse about re-tuning columns…

Peter Re-tuning Columns (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

In the snapshot above, Peter is trimming the top off one of two Greek revival columns deconstructed and salvaged back in 2006 when we rehabilitated Rosslyn’s dining room. Although our vision was to repurpose these bold design elements, to upcycle them some way, somehow, it wasn’t until undertaking the icehouse rehab (after postponing it indefinitely 14 or 15 years ago) that this capricious concept presented itself: use them in the icehouse!

Why, you might well ask, would we need two imposing columns inside the diminutive icehouse? While the question is reasonable, perhaps *need* is not the most appropriate evaluation. After all, adaptive reuse of a utility building originally constructed to fulfill a highly specific (and outdated) function obviously doesn’t *need* handsome embellishments for structural support. And yet the opportunity to re-integrate these historic Rosslyn elements into an otherwise utilitarian barn has presented a whimsical challenge that at some level echoes the unlikely marriage of work space and recreation hub we’re imagining into existence with this newest rehab project.

And soon enough, you’ll be able to witness the capricious way in which this pair of columns (and an understated entablature) not only help support the loft where I’ll be composing these daily dispatches in coming months, but also define and frame a spatial transition from the more intimate entrance and coffee bar into the loftier main room of this small building.

Offcuts from Re-tuning Columns (Photo: R.P. Murphy)

Those geometric discs above are actually offcuts from Peter’s column re-tuning. while it’s easy enough for me to conjure these quirky concepts, and similarly viable for Tiho to translate my ideas into drawings, it is left to the alchemy of Peter and other finish carpenters to ultimately morph busily s and plans into reality. Thank you, Peter!

Tuning, Haikus
```
Re-tuning columns
salvaged from a dining room,
once deconstructed. 
```
Sometimes a few fingers full of words best communicate a notion nebulous enough to wiggle free of prosaic paragraphs. And other times image, sound, motion speak sounder than words. So I conclude with two haikus, the more familiar variety above, and a quirky mashup below. Enjoy.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrE3pxAAcNb/
April 15, 2023
Tasha, Tennis and Wildlife

Tasha Testing the Territory

Tucked into a meadow surrounded by forest, the tennis court was starting to show a quarter century of soggy springs and icy winters. The net drooped, but we decided not to tighten it and risk breaking the rotten netting. Besides the droop better accommodated our rusty tennis skills.

The twelve foot tall fence around the court sagged along the north side. A tree that had fallen across it a few years before had been removed, but the stretched steel mesh retained the memory. Several young maple trees grew along the crumbling margin of the court and protruded inside the fence. Towering maples, oaks and white pines surrounded the court on three sides, lush with new foliage that whispered in the wind. Birds and squirrels chattered in the canopy. Ants paraded across the court’s puckering green surface, and a pair of small butterflies danced in a rising and falling gyre. Tasha sniffed around the perimeter of the court, her obligatory inspection as head ball girl for our sylvan Roland Garros.

We started to volley back and forth, balls collecting quickly on both sides of the net. It felt great to be hitting a tennis ball again, and – like every spring – I vowed to spend more time on the court, perennially optimistic that a solid tennis game was within my reach.

The sound of our rackets making solid contact with the fresh balls encouraged us and prompted Tasha to abandon the grasshopper she had been badgering. She headed out onto Susan’s side of the court and started to lunge at balls, attempting to catch them in her mouth. We tried to be more creative in our placement, trying simultaneously to avoid hitting her and to protect the nice new balls from her slobbery maw.

Soon enough she discovered that she could simply take her pick from the balls that were collecting beside the net, and she plunked down in the middle of the court to enjoy a new chew toy.

“Maybe we should have brought the hopper of old balls, so it wouldn’t matter if she chewed them…”

“Home run!” Susan cheered, sending a ball soaring over the fence into the woods. Excited, Tasha got up and padded over to the fence where she stood, looking for the ball in the woods.

Soon, enough balls had vanished over the fence that we headed out to see how many we could recover.

“Hey, come check out this snake!” I called out to Susan after startling a small garter snake in the tall grass near the woods.

“Tasha, come! Grab her. Don’t let her get close to it!” Susan’s words came like machine gun fire as she sprinted toward me. “It might be poisonous!”

“It’s just a garter snake,” I said. “Tasha’s fine.”

“Are you sure it’s not a rattlesnake? Where is it?” she asked, next to us now, grabbing Tasha by the collar and pulling her backward, away from the grass where the snake had already vanished.

“It’s gone.”

“Gone? Where? Why didn’t you keep your eye on it?” Susan hustled Tasha back toward the tennis court.

“Relax. It was a garter snake, Susan. It’s harmless. Nothing to worry about.”

“How do you know? What if you’re wrong?”

Tasha shags a tennis ball

When I returned from the woods with most of the balls, Susan had our tennis rackets tucked under her arm. Tasha was leashed.

“I’m ready to go,” Susan said.

“Because of the snake?”

“No. I’m just ready. I’ve played enough tennis.”

“Okay.”

Susan asked me to walk ahead, checking for snakes. I laughed, then obliged, walking a few paces with exaggerated caution.

“Stop!” I bellowed, freezing and pointing into the grass ahead. “I think I see one…”

“That’s not funny,” said, repressing a smile.

“Wait, do you hear that rattling noise?”

Susan laughed. Tasha pulled at her leash, excited, ready to help me search for snakes.

“Well, you never know,” Susan said. “Tasha’s a city dog. She might try to attack a rattlesnake.”

“Because that’s what city dogs do?” I laughed.

Tasha, our twelve year old Labrador Retriever, enjoyed bark at wildlife, maybe even an abbreviated mock charge in the case of deer, but she had little interest in tangling with animals, birds or snakes. Frogs intrigued her more, briefly, until she realized they were not toys. A sleepy cluster fly could entertain her for five or ten minutes. But Tasha would leave rattlesnake attacking to younger, more aggressive beasts.

May 20, 2011
Essaying: A Mind at Work

Thirteen years ago this coming July, I jotted notes while reading Susan Tiberghien’s One Year to a Writing Life: Twelve Lessons to Deepen Every Writer’s Art and Craft. In my notes, I included a quotation from Robert Atwan cited by Tiberghien:

What essays give you is a mind at work. — Robert Atwan (“Return of the Essay“)

This possibility provides the seed for today’s consideration.

Essaying: A Mind at Work (Photo: Geo Davis)

Observing a Mind at Work

Imagine being able to observe the inner workings of a person’s mind while they compose an essay. While they try to compose an essay. Essaying is, after all, a trial. An attempt. An endeavoring toward some coalescence of idea(s) and words capable of infecting a reader with the same wonder and possibly even the same conclusion(s) as the author.

Imagine being able to eavesdrop in the mind of an essayist sifting memories and sorting experiences; distilling spirits from the fruits of life; alchemizing diverse inputs in the hopes of discerning a cohesive structure; deciphering data to reveal a design; disentangling a narrative from the muddled mess.

Although my notes didn’t wander into the realm of “voyeurism”, it comes to mind. Let’s conveniently sidestep the unseemly side of voyeurism (ie. sexual connotations) that definitely does NOT apply in the present context, but let’s preserve the notion of observing. The voyeurism of a mind at work. Interpolation into the curiosity and yearning; the mixology of memory or massaging of notions; the eureka arrivals and the labyrinthine dead-ends; an intimate perspective on the sculpting of ideas, the attempt at synthesizing and conjoining and creating a mental map that guides us to the hidden treasure.

There is nothing more exciting than to follow a live, candid mind thinking on the page, exploring uncharted waters. — Phillip Lopate, “Reflection and Retrospection: A Pedagogic Mystery Story” in To Show and to Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction (New York: Free Press, 2013), p. 43.

At the time as I was reading Tiberghien I wrote in my notes, “This memoir really involves an opening up of my skull…” A touch melodramatic in retrospect. I went on to extend this metaphorical laying open with an introspective inventory and assessment of the previous four years which we’d poured into rehabilitating Rosslyn. My decision-making, Susan’s decision-making, our collective decision-making. The way that we were living, adjusting to a more-or-less completed home revitalization. An internal dialogue and a revisiting of conversations spanning about four times longer than we’d allotted at the outset, running dialogues with contractors, family, and friends about the outsized project we’d undertaken (and at last survived!) Contemplating a landscape of memories, considering how our quest to catalyze this adventure from beginning to end had become a journey that neither of us really had anticipated.

I’m still — thirteen years after first wrestling with the idea of essaying — relying on the navigational tools of essay to help me sort through this Rosslyn chapter. “A mind at work”… “exploring uncharted waters.” Again. For the first time. A mind endeavoring to make sense of circumstance. Trying to connect the dots, to find meaning in a catalogue of events, victories, disasters,…

What began with restoring a house into a home as a way to reboot our lives became a collective journey shared by many, not just Susan and me. Everyone that worked on this +/-4 year long adventure. And our families. Our friends. Our neighbors.

And although this project long since evolved beyond the capacity of an essay, many of the blog posts are composed as essays. It’s an intertwined collection of essays and poems and field notes nominally held together by a central subject, Rosslyn, but really sprawling into something else, a sort of three dimensional mosaic. A mind at work. The story of a house, yes, but more so, the story of our relationship with home.

April 4, 2023
Midpoint Milestone: 6 Months Down, 6 Months to Go

Midpoint Milestone (Photo: Geo Davis)

Yesterday was a meaningful midpoint milestone in my quest to post a Rosslyn update every day without fail for an entire year.

Six months, 26+ weeks, 184 days. One new installment every 24-hours without fail. Rhapsodizing Rosslyn, celebrating our team’s accomplishments, soapboxing historic rehab and adaptive reuse, showcasing seasonality snapshots and historic Essex memorabilia, weaving in some hyperlocal haiku and place-based poetry, illuminating the mercurial transition / transformation we’re currently navigating, and sharing boathouse and icehouse updates, intriguing artifacts, and wildlife observations.

Call it a 184-day streak. Or call it dogged determination. Either way I have 181 days to go until I reach my goal. And with each new post, each small victory, I am growing more and more confident that I will accomplish my mission of 365 posts, one complete year of daily updates beginning on August 1, 2022 and concluding on July 31, 2023.

So how to commemorate this midpoint milestone? With 6 months down and 6 months to go, it feels momentous enough to pause and praise my good fortune. But should this benchmark be acknowledged with a celebratory salute? A solemn ceremony? A toast, my first spirited sip after 31 days of teetotaling? (Yesterday marked the conclusion of my 7th or 8th, maybe even my 9th “dry January”.) Or perhaps a decadent dessert after a sugar free month? (For some sadomasochistic reason I’ve decided in recent years to add a sugar fast to alcohol abstention during the month of January, a timely recovery after the excesses of Thanksgiving-through-New Years…) A new month (ie. rabbit-rabbit) ritual transcending the delicious dinner I shared with Jim and Mark two nights ago at Juniper?

Slow Cooked Whole Rabbit: cumin, blood orange and smoked paprika glazed, corn tortillas, chimichurri, salsa fresca, refried beans (Source: Juniper at Hotel Vermont)

Maybe a romantic romp with my bride who suggested, upon retrieving me from the airport yesterday, that we celebrate a belated anniversary to compensate for the one we missed this past autumn when she was unwell. 17 years of marriage and 21 years together. I’m incredulous even as I type these numbers. Neither seems remotely possible. But my 50th birthday seemed similarly inaccurate this past spring, and I’m obliged to accept it.

Or how about we honor the 200th anniversary of Rosslyn’s front façade, ostensibly completed in 1823? (Apparently 3/5 of the building — the two window portion to the north of the entrance, as well as the entrance itself — was completed in 1820. The remaining 2/5, including the two windows to the south of the entrance and comprising the dining room downstairs, a guest bedroom and Susan’s study on the second floor, and another guest bedroom on the third floor, was most likely finished three years later in 1823, fulfilling the the architectural promise of this classic Federal home with Georgian and Greek Revival elements.

An auspicious confluence of milestones and anniversaries. I’m choosing to interpret this is a good omen even as I nevertheless acknowledge that I’ve meandered from my original mark, hoisting the flag at my halfway point, mid-journey in my post-a-day quest. I recall an earlier waypoint in this quest, an update I published on October 10, 2022 when I was still just shy of halfway to where I am today.

Yesterday marked ten weeks of old house journaling. Every. Single. Day. Two months and ten days back at the helm of this wayward, meandering, sometimes unruly experiment I call Rosslyn Redux. I emphasize the daily component of this benchmark because it’s been an important part of the goal I committed to at the end of July. (Source: Old House Journaling)

Then as now my emphasis on everyday journaling remains a top priority.

Over the last few years, Susan and I have scrutinized our hopes and expectations with Rosslyn. We have reevaluated our plans as they originally were in 2006 when we embarked on this adventure and as those plans evolved during the decade and a half since. It’s been an extended period of introspection, evaluating our current wants and needs, endeavoring to align our future expectations and goals with respect to one another and with respect to Rosslyn, and challenging one another to brainstorm beyond the present.

There’s no question but that our impromptu quarantine at Rosslyn during the spring and summer of 2021 catalyzed some of this soul-searching. But so too have the many life changes in recent years. Our gradual shift toward Santa Fe as our base and Essex as our getaway rather than the other way around. The loss of Susan’s mother. My parents’ retirement near us in Santa Fe. Our nephews and nieces growing up and expanding their orbits far beyond Rosslyn. A perennially postponed but driving desire to collaborate on a smaller, efficient, creative lakeside home of a different DNA altogether, an unrepressable will to imagine into existence the sort of slow cooked (albeit shapeshifting) and highly experimental homestead we originally envisioned in 2003-5 when we first began to explore our Adirondack Coast homecoming. And there is that hiccup in our 2006 original timeline, our 2-4 year vision for homing at Rosslyn until we’d managed to reboot and reground, until we were ready for our next adventure. Those naive expectations were eclipsed — willingly and joyfully — within the first year or two.

So what does this have to do with my daily Rosslyn updates?

Everything.

In committing to this daily practice last summer I was acknowledging that I had some serious work to do. In order for us to constructively sort through out collective vision for the future, to determine whether we’re too fond of Rosslyn to proceed with plans for designing and building the lakeside retreat we’ve conjured over the years, to honestly assess our willingness and our readiness to hand this sanctuary over to another family, both Susan and I are undertaking the sort of “deep work” that will hopefully enable us to make some decisions. I’m talking about 100% honest, prolonged consideration. Rosslyn has quite literally been a part of our family, and not just our nuclear family. Can we untangle her? Are we willing to let her go? Can we joyfully pass the privilege on to new custodians? Or are we not yet ready?

For me this daily practice, digging deep into sixteen and a half years of living and loving Rosslyn, is my time and place to work through these questions. To sort it all out. To find peace and confidence in my convictions. And six months in, I believe that I’m on the right path. Not all the time. There have certainly been some tangles and tangents that got away from me before I realized what was happening and reined them in. But the constant conversation — *internal* as I study, reflect, and compose these installments as well as *external* as I share these updates and then interact with many of you — is reinvigorating and reawakening Rosslyn from her comfortable slumber (and me from mine!)

So this midpoint milestone is a profoundly significant benchmark for me personally. It’s the tangible representation of my germinating confidence and clarity. It’s the measurable mean between a conflicted outlook and the conviction I’m hoping to discover over the next six months. In a real sense, it’s a halfway point toward the sort of rehabilitation that we’ve been undertaking with Rosslyn’s buildings and grounds since 2006, only in this case the journey is profoundly personal. Instead of historic architectural rehabilitation, it is restoration of my innermost wonder, my romantic dreams, and my idealistic hopes. With passion reawakened and a map forward becoming more apparent each day, I’m tempted to see this benchmark as the sort of celebration enjoyed upon finally reaching a base camp, a lofty peak viewable in the distance foreshadows the ambitious ascent ahead but also offers a majestic affirmation of the reachability and proximity of the summit. Today marks just such a halfway point, an opportunity to appreciate the accomplishments so far, and an incentive to forge ahead.

Thank you for meeting me in the middle!

February 1, 2023
When Lost, Poetry

When I first titled this post it was “If Lost, Poetry”. But it felt phony. If? Too hypothetical. We’re ALL lost from time to time. Provisionally lost. But… when lost, poetry.

When Lost, Poetry (Credit: Geo Davis)

Fortunately former U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harjo, has the right words for us.

“Without poetry, we lose our way” — Joy Harjo

Exactly. And with poetry, we can rediscover our way. Ergo, when lost, I search for the poetry!

No Poetry, No Way!

Sometimes the workflow, the punch lists, and the deadlines mesmerize us. Lull us.

We become lost.

In these moments, I choose poetry. I untether from the routine, the daily demands, the results-driven dynamics for a few heartbeats or hours. In this case, it’s been a full week.

Back from a wandering, wondering week in the West Indies with family. Laughing, telling stories, dining, dancing, sailing, windsurfing, swimming. Reawakening the poetry. Revitalizing the poetry. Rebooting…

When lost, poetry.

April 2, 2023
66% Done, 33% To Go

Carley, Contemplating 33% Ahead (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)

This is my 243rd Rosslyn update in daily succession. It completes an 8-month streak of daily old house journaling, the 2/3 mark in my quest to post every day for one year. I marked an earlier milestone — six months in and six months to go — with a summary of the aspirations guiding these posts.

Rhapsodizing Rosslyn, celebrating our team’s accomplishments, soapboxing historic rehab and adaptive reuse, showcasing seasonality snapshots and historic Essex memorabilia, weaving in some hyperlocal haiku and place-based poetry, illuminating the mercurial transition / transformation we’re currently navigating, and sharing boathouse and icehouse updates, intriguing artifacts, and wildlife observations. (Source: Midpoint Milestone)

With four months to go, I’d say this vision is still accurate, but the “mercurial transition / transformation we’re currently navigating” has received short shrift. The most psychologically probing (and the most elusive) of the subjects I’ve been exploring, it nevertheless gets sidestepped, dodged, abbreviated, and postponed.

And so I’m hoping to recalibrate in the weeks ahead, offering more perspective on our current state(s) of liminality. Dig deeper. Increase transparency. Invite you into the considerations and conundrums that we’re weighing. Big decisions on the horizon, and sometimes complex, sometimes conflicting feelings and ideas. Time for an open book…

March 31, 2023
Historic Rehabilitation

Once upon a time—starting in about 2005 or 2006 and concluding about a dozen years ago, if memory serves—I was on the board on Historic Essex (formerly Essex Community Heritage Organization, ECHO). Todd Goff, a fellow director, Essex neighbor, and friend, took it upon himself to correct me, differentiating for me “historic preservation” from ” from “historic rehabilitation”. I no longer remember the context, but I expect I was updating him in 2006 or 2007 on our progress in the early days of our mushrooming renovation project. Armed with a keen mind (and master’s degree in preservation), I respected Todd’s knowledge and appreciated his clarification. I expect that I used renovation, restoration, and preservation interchangeably in those days, never stopping to consider the profoundly important differences.

I most likely had not used the historic rehabilitation at all prior to that point, and learning more about it opened my eyes, ignited my curiosity, and kindled my imagination. More on fanciful end of the spectrum anon. For now I’d like to delineate for you historic rehabilitation as I understand it. (And please note that if you, like Mr. Goff, are able to advance my instruction, please advise in the comments below. Thanks in advance.)

J.C. Coatsworth Residence (Antique Postcard)

Preservation vs. Rehabilitation

Less stringent than historic preservation, historic rehabilitation emphasizes maintaining the historic integrity of architectural heritage while balancing its relevant functionality for modern day use.

Both preservation and rehabilitation are sensitive to the imperative of preserving the historic character and value of a resource, but modern functionality weighs more heavily in the case or the latter. When an architecturally significant resource is abandoned or in advanced stages of disrepair, both approaches are viable means of saving and revitalizing the resource. Likewise, both can be complex, painstaking, lengthy, and expensive processes. In fact, sometimes the scope exceeds the means and/or justification for revitalizing a property, and all too often valuable architectural and cultural heritage is indefinitely neglected and eventually lost.

The potential for integrating modern functionality (and therefor relevance) into an historic property can be the difference between its recovery or it neglect.

Sherwood Inn (Antique Postcard)

Defining Historic Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation is defined as the act or process of making possible a compatible use for a property through repair, alterations, and additions while preserving those portions or features which convey its historical, cultural, or architectural values. (Source: U.S. National Park Service)

In short, historic rehabilitation (rehab) is the process by which an historic property is returned to a state of usefulness while maintaining its historic character. Starting out with a comprehensive analysis of the cultural and/or architectural heritage ensures a solid foundation for planning the entire rehabilitation process. Drawing upon the collaborative expertise of diverse professionals, rehab must be tailored to the unique character and historic significance. Ranging from minimalist repairs and overdue maintenance to more involved intervention such as modification to ensure structural integrity, installation and/or removal of windows and doors, and even construction of non-historic additions.

Boathouse with Coal Bin on Pier (Antique Postcard)

Rosslyn’s Historic Rehabilitation

From those early days as Rosslyn’s newest stewards, when Susan and I were still running on dreams, optimism, and a totally unrealistic sense for the magnitude of the project we’d undertaken, our twin objectives were to preserve the immense heritage we’d inherited while ensuring that our new home was a functional, energy efficient modern home attuned to our needs and lifestyle. Todd helped me understand that what we were undertaking was indeed an historic rehabilitation, and that paradigm shift that he initiated catalyzed a shift in my thinking not only about our revitalization of these four historic buildings, but indeed the entire ethos underlying our pivot from Manhattan to Essex and own own personal reawakening. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Boathouse with Ruins of Pier in Foreground (Antique Postcard)

Historic Rehabilitation Resources

Rehabilitation as a Treatment and Standards for Rehabilitation (U.S. National Park Service)

Illustrated Guidelines for Rehabilitating Historic Buildings (U.S. Secretary of the Interior)

January 19, 2023
ChatGPT & “Dear John” Letter Writing

Rosslyn Barns, January 2023 (Photo: Geo Davis)

Another peculiar — I prefer *idiosyncratic* — post this evening. Humor me? Yesterday I related an anecdotal jumble about gathering with friends, artificial intelligence, Essex, Westport, and a poem composed by ChatGPT. No clear takeaways. No conclusions. Just a voyeuristic glimpse into the overlap of buddies jawboning IRL and an AI chatbot weaving words into a midwinter mirage.

Here’s where I left off.

Perhaps like me, you’re a little wary of AI dabbling in the cultural and aesthetic arenas. An idea is percolating underneath my tangled mop, but I’m going to sleep on it. Morning might mature my perspective a few shades. And, so, without further ado, I’ll wrap up for the evening, inviting you to contemplate AI chat bots as fellow sojourners. Artificial intelligence offering us an ode to Essex. Thank you, ChatGPT. Thank you, Mark! (Source: A Place Where Stories are Told)

Roughly 24-hours later, I’m ready to revisit the percolating idea (not unlike inspecting the grape must or checking the airlock on a carboy of homemade wine.)

Today was an air travel day. Snowstorms, airports, airplanes,… So connectivity was limited. But, eager to engage ChatGPT a little further, and I managed to volley a few questions and answers between departure and arrival. I’m going to share our exchange verbatim.

Me: Can you imagine writing a “Dear John” letter to a house?

ChatGPT: Yes, it’s possible to imagine writing a “Dear John” letter to a house, although it may not have a real impact as a house is inanimate and lacks the ability to understand or feel emotions.

Me: Perhaps it might have a real impact on the letter writer?

ChatGPT: Yes, writing a “Dear John” letter to a house could have a real emotional impact on the letter writer as a form of self-expression and catharsis, even though the house itself would not be affected by it.

Me: I’m not 100% certain about the house categorically being unaffected, but maybe that assessment should be postponed for now. However the possibility of a “Dear John” letter proving cathartic, possibly even catalytic, for the letter writer… now THAT is compelling, don’t you think?

The tidy text thread stalled, and then I received an error message: “Load failed”. Then another pause, and then a partial response.

ChatGPT: …could potentially be a therapeutic exercise for the writer. However, it’s important to keep in mind that everyone experiences and processes emotions differently, and what may be cathartic for one person may not be for another. 1/1

It surprised me how much I yearned to know what was in the lost portion of the message. And then I realized that I could refresh the bot’s response. I hoped that it would regenerate the missing phrase(s). I’ll indicate when I’ve refreshed with a numbering sequence (see 1/1 above) following the comment.

ChatGPT: Yes, the act of writing a “Dear John” letter can be a form of self-expression and catharsis for the writer, helping them process their emotions and potentially leading to personal growth and change. Whether writing to a house specifically is the most effective way to achieve this catharsis is subjective and can vary from person to person. 2/2

Intrigued by the discovery that I can refresh and get another answer, I decide to try again. It’s not that I’m dissatisfied with the response, but curiosity gets the best of me!

ChatGPT: Yes, it is possible for a “Dear John” letter to have a cathartic or even catalytic effect on the letter writer, serving as a form of self-expression and allowing them to process and release emotions related to their experience with the house. Writing can be a powerful therapeutic tool for individuals, helping them to process and make sense of their thoughts and feelings. 3/3

Bullseye!

And yet, I can’t help but feel simultaneously pleased and self conscious about this response. It’s as if I’ve manipulated and cherry-picked. I have. And it seems unhealthy somehow. I need to resist the temptation to manipulate the responses. I will accept the composite response, not picking and choosing. For an instant I imagine a conversation with Susan in which I discretely tap a refresh button and she overwrites her previous response. Slippery slope. Problematic. I’ll try to restrain myself.

Me: Identifying and seeking to understand emotions related to the house would be useful. Processing them, making sense of them, and then possibly letting go of them, at least some of them, might indeed prove to be a powerful therapeutic process.

ChatGPT: Yes, identifying and understanding emotions related to the house, and then processing and making sense of them through writing can be a therapeutic process that can help the letter writer gain insight and possibly let go of some of their emotions. Engaging in self-reflection and creative expression can be beneficial in promoting emotional healing and personal growth. 1/1

Hhhmmm… I feel only partly sated. Let’s try again.

ChatGPT: Exactly, exploring and understanding emotions related to the house through writing a “Dear John” letter could be a therapeutic process for the letter writer. It provides a creative outlet for the writer to process their emotions and gain insight into their experiences and feelings. This can lead to a sense of closure and even personal growth for the writer, as they work through and let go of any lingering emotions related to the house. 2/2

Me: Right. That would be super helpful. (Hypothetically, of course!) And, the insights gained, the personal growth you refer to, actually *might* bring the letter writer to a different conclusion. For example, writing the letter could show the “Dear John” letter writer that he or she isn’t actually ready to breakup with the house. Hypothetically, at least…

ChatGPT: Yes, that is possible. Writing a “Dear John” letter to a house can also serve as a way for the letter writer to gain clarity on their feelings and relationship with the house. It may help them realize that they are not ready to let go, and instead, they may want to explore ways to improve their relationship with the house. By examining their emotions and experiences through writing, the letter writer may gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship with the house, which could potentially lead to a different outcome than they initially anticipated. 1/1

ChatGPT: Yes, that is possible. Writing a “Dear John” letter to a house can serve as a form of self-reflection and introspection for the letter writer. By exploring and processing their emotions related to the house, the writer may gain new insights and perspectives, and even come to a different conclusion about their relationship with the house. The process of writing the letter could reveal that they are not ready to let go of the house after all, and that they have a deeper emotional connection to it than they initially realized. 2/2

ChatGPT: Yes, that’s a possibility. Writing the “Dear John” letter could serve as a means of self-reflection and bring the writer to a new understanding or realization about their relationship with the house. It could even lead them to conclude that they are not ready to let go of the house and may want to continue the relationship in a positive way. The process of writing the letter and exploring one’s emotions can bring new insights and a deeper understanding of oneself and one’s experiences, potentially leading to a shift in perspective. 3/3

Not ready to let go. A shift in perspective. Differing conclusions. I’m trying not to lose sight of the fact that this is an algorithm barebacking a mountain of data. But this exchange is engaging and intriguing.

Recent days at Rosslyn have stirred up all sorts of questions. I’m brimming with wonder, both the wayward wandering variety and the introspective variety. And still-fresh conversations with friends have helped crystallize considerations that I’m tempted to share with ChatGPT. Matters that Susan and I navigate pragmatically whenever we’re away from Rosslyn become considerably less clear, for me at least, when I’m home in Essex. Three pairs of friends, three variations of the question: are you seriously considering selling Rosslyn? Years ago we conjured a metric for evaluating when we might be ready to offer our home to a new homeowner. Time to revisit. Perhaps with the assistance of artificial intelligence.

January 31, 2023
Old House, New Home
Old House, New Home (Source: Geo Davis)

I’ve lived much, perhaps even *most* of my life in old houses. With the exception of late middle and high school, 3/4 of college, briefly in Santa Fe (1996-9), and briefly in Paris and Rome, my homes have been within old houses. And, come to think of it, some of my boarding school years were in old homes too. And yet each new home was revitalized — and revitalizing — when it became my personal (or familial) residential oasis. Old house, new home.

Hyde Gate, Essex, New York (Illustration by Kate Boesser for All My Houses, By Sally Lesh)

With Rosslyn becoming our place of residence, starting in 2006 and fully by 2008, this old house, new home combination took on new levels of significance. The oldness of the house wasn’t just evident in the architecture and design, the building materials and dated/failing mechanicals, and the time-earned gravity that many enduring old buildings exude. All of these were in evidence with Rosslyn, for sure. But there was something more.

Rosslyn’s history included a notable human legacy: lives lived and recorded; stories told and retold; images made, circulated, and collected. Rosslyn’s backstory as a prominent presence along Merchants Row; built by one of the two founding families in Essex; plus the iconic boathouse attracting the eyes of generations of photographers, artists, travelers; the years spent as a local enterprise (restaurant and watering hole, vacation accommodation, and boating regatta hub); and well documented home and preservation subject of George McNulty who helped catalyze Essex’s recognition in the historic register;… Rosslyn was an old house, new home with an outsized history. This was new to Susan and me.

The questions. The advice. The judgement. The memories and stories and artifacts. The responsibility. The stewardship. The pride… It’s been an adjustment. A learning curve. A deeply formative journey. A privilege.

The Farm in Cossayuna, New York (Painting: Louis Coldwell)

Old House, New Home
```
Once upon a time
this handsome old house 
became our new home,
and along with it
almost two hundred
years of backstory,
lives, styles, and lifestyles.
I try to gather
into a basket 
or a tapestry, 
a moving picture
or a singalong,
the colorful threads,
the adventures, and
the text textured tunes.  
```
October 20, 2022
Rosslyn Rapture: A Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty

After purchasing Rosslyn, George McNulty, presented us with a bronze sculpture born of his own hands and imagination. Standing with arms outstretched, extended skyward, the figure’s celebratory posture exudes joy and pride. In my view, McNulty’s miniature man appears to be celebrating or perhaps praising, arms reaching upward toward the heavens. Rosslyn Rapture, I’ve titled it (albeit only in my mind.) With no permission from the artist to name/rename his work, you’ll note no plaque adorning the base, no engraved nametag competing for attention. In fact, until now I’ve kept mostly mum about my personal title for McNulty’s sculpture. It felt presumptuous to impose my narrative, my interpretation onto another’s creation.

Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty

And while we didn’t have Rosslyn Rapture plaqued, we did have it mounted on a small marble base for display. When we received the sculpture a couple of bolts protruded from the bottom of the feet for mounting. Since, at first, the figure could not be exhibited without a base, we held it in our hands. We felt the weighty bronze, ran our fingertips over the textured surface shaped by the fingers of a man who invested almost four decades into studying and documenting and slowly restoring the buildings which we now call home. We traced the figure’s lanky limbs and placed our fingertips into the sculpture’s tiny palms. There was an intimacy. A connection. Or so I chose to believe.

In time I came to see the sculpture as McNulty’s exaltation for a home and a heritage that he loved. A man exalted with reverence. It was a hypothesis that fit the man I’d briefly come to know. It was a hypothesis consistent with the anecdotes and memories shared by his Essex friends and neighbors. It was a hypothesis that justified his commitment—spanning almost four decades—to preserving this historic property. But mostly, as I’ve come to learn in the years since, it was a hypothesis that helped me explain my own love affair with Rosslyn. I realize now that I was ascribing my own passion for this property onto the previous owner. I was enraptured with Rosslyn, with our new life at Rosslyn, and with the prospect of restoring this stately home and grounds to the restrained elegance still evident but fading. I had reimagined this art as an artifact of the previous owner’s passion and devotion for Rosslyn when in fact my hypothesis was first and foremost self referential.

Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty

A Bronze Sculpture

In short, I realize now that Rosslyn Rapture was my creation. McNulty’s was a bronze sculpture of a man with outreached arms and open hands lifted high. I saw a man grasping for something or praising a higher being. Or perhaps the man’s adulation was for a woman with whom he was impassioned? But fancy clouds my vision. The man’s arms are outreached. That is clear. Whether in praise or celebration or something altogether different, only the sculptor knows.

For many years the figure has presided over our living room from his perch on the mantle above the northern fireplace. When I gave George McNulty’s son, Jason, a house tour a few year after completing our renovation, he immediately spotted the sculpture.

“What happened to the baby?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” I responded, confused.

“The man was originally holding a baby up in the air,” he explained.

It had never even occurred to me that there might have been another part of the sculpture, a part now missing. A baby. That’s what he’s lifting up and celebrating.

I explained to Jason that we had not removed the baby. We had never even seen the baby. Aside from the addition of a marble base, this is exactly how the sculpture looked when it was gifted to us by Jason’s father.

Probably his father had made two versions, Jason suggested, one with a baby, and one without. Or perhaps the baby was cast separately and conjoined afterward.

Both possibilities seem possible, probable even. Imagination flushes out the narrative. George McNulty sculpts the man out of clay, creates a mold from the original, and—using the lost wax process—casts several bronze replicas. Separately and by the same process, he casts bronze babies which he then welds to the man’s hands. One of the figures, for some mysterious reason, remains empty handed. No baby.

I found myself, wondering if his son, now standing in the living room of the house where he had grown up, might perhaps have been the inspiration for the sculpture, maybe even the model. The man did, after all, resemble his father. And the baby? Anybody’s guess.

It occurs to me later that there’s another possibility. Perhaps each of the figures originally held a baby high in the air. But one broke. Or the sculptor removed it. Maybe that’s why he gave it to me, because it was an incomplete piece. This seems like a reasonable hypothesis, and maybe it’s correct. But I prefer the possibility that he gifted us this version because it leaves open the hands, open the possibility that Rosslyn is the subject of the man’s ecstasy.

Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty

Rosslyn Rapture: Bronze Sculpture by George McNulty

January 13, 2023
Searching for Poetry
Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)

Searching for poetry, questing for questions that need no answers to matter and guide and enrich.

This might be my epitaph. Some day. But not yet. I hope.

Today, the vernal equinox, I awoke at 4:00 AM, eager to start cooking a wild boar roast I had thawed. Actually it wasn’t the roast that caffeinated me prior to my first cuppa MUD\WTR, that zero-to-sixtied my green gray matter within seconds.

If the human brain were a computer, it would be the greenest computer on Earth.

The basis for the brain’s greenness is its ultra-high computational efficiency; that is, it can generate a tremendous amount of computational output for the very little power it draws. (Source: Is the human brain a biological computer? | Princeton University Press)

You with me? Caveat emptor: it’s going to be that kind of post!

It wasn’t anticipation of the pulled wild boar that I enjoyed for lunch (and soon will enjoy for dinner) that prevented me from falling back asleep. (I love variety, but if it ain’t broke… And if you’ve cooked 5.4lbs of wild boar shoulder, then share, eat, share, eat, share,…)

It was one of those light-switch-on awakenings. Sound asleep one moment, wide awake the next. 100% alert, cylinders thumping away, and focus dialed in. Monday morning’s are often like that for me. And with an ambitious punch list for the icehouse rehab, I needed to hit the ground running. Or jumpstart the week by roasting a wild boar shoulder?

Both.

But, after talking through exterior trim and clapboard siding with two contractors, explaining how to prune watersprouts (aka “growth shoots) out of our mature American Linden to another contractor, and various other midmorning miscellanea, I headed into the carriage barn for some, ahem, research.

I’m still sorting through architectural salvage and surplus building materials, endeavoring to make final decisions for the icehouse. Woulda-coulda-shoulda tackled this many months ago, and I tried, but the process continues to evolve. In some cases, it’s continues to elude me. So my endeavor continues.

Today I ruled out a couple of ideas I’ve been developing, visions for upcycling deconstructed cabinetry from Sherwood Inn days. The visions have faded, but all is not lost. In the shadowy space they’ve left behind, I stumbled upon something else.

A poem.

Searching for Poetry Amidst Architectural Salvage (Photo: Geo Davis)

Searching for Poetry
```
Wabi-sabi wandering,
wabi-sabi wondering —
reimagining relics,
architectural salvage,
weather worn detritus,
offcuts, rusty remainders,
time textured tatters,
pre-mosaic fragments,
and dust mote mirages —
so much pulling apart,
so much pushing aside,
searching for poetry.
```
Today I concluded that the vision I’d been pursuing — a vision of upcycling deconstructed cabinetry and paneling from the Sherwood Inn’s colonial taproom — had been little more than mirage. However as this mirage vanished, I happened upon a glimmer of clarity, fleeting but encouraging, around an even bigger mystery that I’ve been chasing. Also mirage-like, also elusive, also a problem that persistence might hopefully tame, also a quest for questions that illuminate and instruct even when their answers evanesce.

This glimmer of clarity (try to imagine a spark that just might benefit from attention, a flickering flame that invites kindling with promises of a roaring bonfire) materialized briefly where moments before a mirage had danced and vanished. And what did I see? Companionship. Kinship. Similarity. Affinity. Between poetry and architectural rehabilitation and adaptive reuse. A glimmer and gone. I exaggerate, but the picture is at once protean, subtle, and elusive.

Nevertheless, I will continue to strive, risk, and experiment. I will continue essaying to illustrate the intimate overlap between poetry and construction — especially between composing lyric essay and adaptive reuse of existing buildings and building materials — until my wandering and wondering renders an oasis. Or admits a mirage.
March 20, 2023
Shirley Poppy
A day after my bride’s “polar plunge” in still frigid Lake Champlain, I’m swimming and drifting in the warm waters of Antigua, enjoying a free ranging conversation with one of my nephews, allowing salt and surf and steel band sounds (drifting intermittently from further up the shore) to exercise the sort of deep relinquishing that comes from knowing a vacation has only just begun.

Before departing Rosslyn I handed off germinating spring starts (broccoli and cucumbers) to Pam along with various vegetable and flower seeds that will be sown before long. Among the latter, thousands of poppy seeds. Always plenty of Red Corn Poppy (Papaver rhoeas aka Flanders Poppy) seeds as well as Shirley Poppy seeds, a cultivar of Papaver rhoeas that reminds me of my mother-in-law, Shirley Bacot Shamel. As my affection for poppies has long since escaped the restraint of manly propriety, I’ll concede that one of my spring fever symptoms is an infatuation with poppy plants, poppy blooms, poppy seed pods. And, in the case of the Shirley Poppy blooms, there’s always the added excitement since variations allow for intriguing surprises.

So a sunset soak with Christoph, gazing back at the oasis that we’ve been fortunate to enjoy as a family for eight years, curiously preoccupied with poppies, and looking forward to wandering the grounds in the days ahead to inspect the vast array of tropical orchids cultivated at Curtain Bluff, it struck me that I needed to explore these connections in a poem. Perhaps a Shirley Poppy poem?

Perhaps, but not today, as it turns out. The words that wanted to be written were driven in large part by a connection to place. This section seems to be headed in an interesting direction, for example.
```
Upon arriving,
a warm Wadadli welcome,
a breeze mellowed sun,
familiar phrases,
cadence, laughter
lilting,
lulling, 
returning us
to the leeward lap
of ease and comfort,
a simple sanctuary
bursting with blooms
and recollections.
```
A bit decadent and overwrought still probably, but I am pleased to read it aloud.

But where am I hoping to go with this?!?! I can’t seem to see my way from tropical orchids to Shirley Poppy blooms. Nor am I certain that allowing my perennial passion for place, indeed for the poetry of place, to kidnap this still evolving verse is advisable.

Instead I’m curious how place, right now this perfect place nestled unassumingly into the hilly shore of Old Road, as well as the memories conjured by returning here, especially memories of my late mother-in-law, somehow a little more present when we’re here, connect. And why are they bleeding into my anticipation of a bumper crop of poppies back at Rosslyn?

Hhhmmm… Sometimes it’s wiser to admit defeat. For now. But stay tuned; I’ll try again.
March 25, 2023