Sailing in San Diego, April 27, 2023 (Photo: Richard Darmanin)
Homecoming! After a week in the Gila Wilderness with John Davis and other Rewilding friends I’m reunited with my beautiful bride. The photo above has *almost* nothing to do with my backcountry adventures in the middle of 3 million acres of New Mexico wilderness. That image was taken about a month ago when Susan and I were sailing in San Diego. The common denominator? “Home is wherever I’m with you…”
Instead of getting tangled up in words and thoughts about homecoming, today’s post will lean into the lyrics of the song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros… “from Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros’ debut album ‘Up From Below’…”
Oh, home, let me come home Home is wherever I’m with you Oh, home, let me come home Home is wherever I’m with you
Sometimes it takes being away from home to identify “homeness”. I’ve been meditating on this question of what makes a house a home for a looong time. And I’m not ready to offer a definitive answer yet. But juxtaposing glimpses — one above, and the other in my unplugged memories of six days and nights in the Gila — reminds me that a BIG piece of the puzzle is Susan. Home is wherever I’m with you!
If you don’t know this catchy song by by Alexander Ebert and Jade Allyson Castrinos, here’s the full adventure.
“Home” is a song written and recorded by American group Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. It was released in January 2010 as the second single from the album, Up from Below… The song is a duet between Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos, with portions of spoken word from both. (Source: Wikipedia)
A quick post for a contemplative homecoming. Ideas percolating…
Consider that word parade fair warning for where I’m headed. From dovetails to team dynamics, in the twinkling of an eye. At least, that was my plan in revisiting a flood of field notes. Instead my errand evolved into a meandering meditation on admittedly abstract, fairly freestyle associations between durable joinery and team dynamics.
So, if you’re the A-to-Z git-r-done type, this is a good post for you to skip. Probably. Unless you’ve already burned a cord of calories and you’re surfing a dopamine-endorphin wave, in which case this might be just the departure from your daily that the doctor ordered. (The proverbial doctor, not the real doctor.)
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind a few weeks to my sudden and unanticipated decampment from Santa Fe to Essex.
Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)
Icehouse Intermission
Mission interrupted, more to the point. Icehouse rehab back on ice for a week or two while we regrouped and remapped and, eventually, rebooted. Upon approaching Rosslyn by water — steely skies and surreal snowflakes fluttering occasionally (as if the special effects team had been downsized), an almost empty ferry, a mostly hibernating hamlet hunkering lakeside — mixed emotions roiled within me.
There was a wellspring of anticipation upon returning to inspect firsthand the team’s progress on the icehouse rehab, boathouse gangway, and some painting and tiling maintenance inside our home. There was also the poignant pique of a visit precipitated not by plan or passion but by infelicitous necessity. (Source: Snow Falling on Homecoming)
Three weeks ago this past Wednesday. The following days were invigorating. Encouraging.
By in large, this impromptu return to Rosslyn has been profoundly positive…
[“On the Level“, a poem drafted during my visit, reflects] the reassurance that I’m encountering, the confidence and conviction that are flowing back in after ebbing…
[…]
On the level, there’s plenty of optimism, despite inevitable setbacks. (Source: On the Level)
The progress was grounding, familiarizing myself physically with what I’d been living virtually, witnessing in person the dramatic transformation of this long-held vision into tangible, well built, inviting spaces and floors and walls and stairs and windows and doors. The volumes and the vessel that contains them, defines them, that had been gestating for almost two decades, was at last becoming believable due to the collaboration and teamwork of many.
Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)
A furtive foray into the curious coalescence of still tender fractures and ruptures that drew me back to Rosslyn (and that continue to disclose themselves each day of my stay, reminders of quaking in recent weeks) but also the durable bonds and the abiding beauty that hold it all together. (Source: Bowtie & Broken Memento)
While it is indeed Rosslyn’s abiding beauty that beckoned us to this property in the first place and her abiding beauty that has buoyed us through years of historic rehabilitation (and personal rehab!), there are times when the border between broken and unbroken blurs and faultiness become fractures. In such cases it is the durable bonds that prevail, that steady the proverbial ship, that hold it all together.
Rarely, I find, does the journey tidily delineate between clear victories and clear setbacks. Ours is a nonbinary and highly subjective adventure, and this midwinter, mid-project hiatus is no exception. Disheartening and challenging, yes, but also an opportunity to acknowledge and to celebrate accomplishment, a notable benchmark on the quest to reinvent a 19th century utility building as a 21st century lifestyle hub on a par with Rosslyn’s gracious home, waterfront, and generous grounds.
In short, there was — and there is — far more to fête than to lament at this juncture.
Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)
Back to Work & Field Notes
In what’s become a familiar pattern, today’s post was an orphaned draft, initiated as field notes during my recent Essex sojourn, and then adapted into a readout for the team to catalyze our onsite meetings into an actionable scope of work. That part happened. Practical. Necessary. Timely. Now, with the benefit of sufficient remove (for tempering tone and shifting perspective) I’m revisiting those field notes from a more meditative perspective. And yes, my reflection has been fueled in no small part by an obsession with joinery.
Before I go there, guiding you into the mesmerizing maze of my imagination (bread crumbs advised), let’s ground this soon-to-be-ungrounded stream of conscious in the days we spent together as a team. Here are a few excerpts recapping my extended site visit.
We met as a big group and as multiple smaller groups over more than a week. Much was rehashed, brainstormed, problematized, and decided during these encounters, so I’d like to follow up with a readout from our main meeting as well as some of the items that came out independently in my one-on-one followups. Please understand that some of what I’m including may feel like micromanaging or second-guessing skills, expertise, experience, etc. Please accept my apologies in advance, and understand that neither are among my objectives. However the last month has illustrated the downside to having direction and decision-making silo’ed up. By “flattening” the team, I am hoping to shift the focus toward a more collegial, more ensemble oriented approach. We have ample resources in our team (an almost embarrassing abundance of skill, passion, and work ethic!), and I want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute, to catch problems before they materialize, to learn from one another, and to avoid the bottlenecks and logjams that we can’t afford at this halfway point.
We will continue to rely on Pam, Peter, and Eric as the three leads or “co-captains” with the objective of streamlining on-site decision-making and progress. But I strongly encourage everyone to study the plans, to ask questions, to make suggestions, and to contribute to the collaborative success of the icehouse rehabilitation as we cartwheel toward the finish line.
Although we covered an expansive scope of work during our meetings, I gathered the gist into a detailed outline for everyone to review, edit, and augment prior to our team meeting the following week. In addition to onboarding everyone as a contributing and valuable member of the team while reaffirming a commitment to transparency as we move forward, I also hope to encourage the sort of cross pollination that has consistently defined the high point of this and previous projects.
Our follow-up team meeting fleshed out the scope of work and cemented the near term benchmarks and timeline. We will be able to revisit weekly with an eye to efficient project management, clear expectations, and an emphasis on incubating the sort of collaborative environment that yields the best results and ensures the most enthusiastic comradely. Goals set. Updates as we advance upon these goals.
So that sets the stage in a dry, rearview mirror sort of way.
What it overlooks is the morale, outlook ,and commitment of everyone with whom I met. Shuffling the team and shifting responsibilities midstream is unsettling and disruptive at best. The way this team came together, processed the change, stepped up to new responsibilities, and immediately, resolutely refocused on the new map and timelines was astounding. Confident and optimistic, proud of their accomplishments heretofore, eager to restore forward motion, and laser focused on the tight timeline, elevated expectation, and bountiful challenges. Unwavering. And hopeful that the full team might be reconstituted in the home stretch to finish up strong together, and to collectively commemorate their accomplishments come June.
And this is part of what takes me to the woodworking, and specifically joinery, as a metaphor. Heck, it’s not even just the sorts of joining and conjunction that are foundational to joinery and even carpentry. It’s the millennia old art and artisanry committed to joining, conjoining, and even mending that fascinates me. I’ve waxed on aplenty about wab-sabi, so I’ll sidestep a tangential deep dive now (ditto for Kintsugi.) A tidy touchstone will suffice.
Wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of appreciating beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete” in nature. (Source: Wikipedia)
Joining, conjoining, and reconjoining. No false disguise, no pretense, no faux facade. Bringing together. Bringing back together. I’m clearly still ill equipped to wordsmith my ideas into articulate or persuasive prose. But I’m working on it. And I’m hurling this half-baked post into the world with the unrestrained wish that it will settle on fertile soil, that it will germinate, and that I will be able to observe and learn how to communicate what it is that I’m discovering, this groundswell of insight that I’m experiencing without yet fully comprehending what it is. Bear with me, and I’ll do my best to interpret the lessons as they are learned.
In the mean time, I will draw in two compelling perspectives that may well shed some light.
Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)
Joinery as Metaphor
Allow me a moment to weave in a consideration that deftly approaches the idea of woodworking as metaphor.
I am building a file cabinet for my office. It strikes me an apt metaphor for what we do as teachers in the classroom. I begin with a vision, followed by making a clearly developed plan. I gather the materials I will need – examining them for grain, quality, and fit. Each piece is cut just over the requisite length. I use a variety of joinery techniques to assemble the parts. The finished piece begins to take form. From the rough construction, wood is slowly and strategically removed, rounding edges and corners, sanding rough edges and surfaces, slowly revealing the finished shape. I stand back to see what continues to require attention. Final details are attended. Stain is gently rubbed in; varnish is brushed on – rubbed smooth between coats. I stand back and smile, satisfied with a pleasing, useful piece of furniture. — Bill Lindquist, January 3, 2012 (Source: The Purple Crayon)
Teaching. Yes. And team building. Team rebuilding.
Perhaps the following is only tangentially related, though it feels germane.
But I know full well that many woodworkers don’t want to hear about philosophy. What practical value can there possibly be in sitting around thinking about work? Isn’t it better just to roll up your sleeves and get to it?
I believe that this temptation to leave our brains at the door of the shop is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature that separates our thinking from our doing…
We are whole beings, and although we have inner and outer aspects (mind/soul and body), we are essentially unities, not dualities… you cannot separate your mind from your body. You can’t put your thoughts and beliefs in one category and your practices in another.
So, why so much thinking and theory from a woodworking publication? Because, reader, you have a mind inextricably connected to those hands. And I am convinced that if we want our work to reflect the fullness of who we are, the why will be just as important as the how. — Joshua A. Klein, September 28, 2021 (Source: What’s With This Woodworking Philosophy Stuff? – Mortise & Tenon Magazine)
Absolutely. (And, as an aside, this reminds me that I’ve been ignoring another orphaned draft about Rosslyn’s 5w’s. Back on the punch list!)
Durable Joinery (Photo: Geo Davis)
At present I’m endeavoring to unweave our recent Rosslyn narrative just enough to re-braid the threads that anew, mending the challenges that have arisen, as if braiding a bridge over troubled water… (Or a bridge graft at the base of a partially girdled tree in Rosslyn’s orchard… Yikes! Mixed metaphors. And so long as I’m hoarding metaphors, what about kintsugi?)
Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese art in which broken pottery is mended with glue and gold honoring and highlighting the cracks rather than hiding them. The belief is the pottery is stronger and more valuable after the breakage and mending. Kintsugi is a powerful metaphor and physical art practice to explore layers of meaning of broken, to look at the pieces in new ways, and notice the ‘glue’ in our lives that assist us to mend, navigate challenging times and keep on going. — Kristin Pedemonti (Source: Mending What’s Broken | Steer Your Story)
The writhing winds are pulling my mind hither and yon, and I find myself too, too deep into this meandering meditation to abandon it. If I’ve lost you, I apologize. Know that we are lost together. But as fellow sojourners we are not idle, waiting for the illumination of morning. Perhaps we’ll stumble upon or quarry in the darkness.
In closing, and I promise you I am, allow me to apologize for this untethered and unedited runaway. More soon, I hope, on mortise and tenons and dovetails, joyful joinery, rejoinery and durable bonds. My imagination is conjuring an intricate scarf joint that conjoins by gathering, by honoring, by encouraging, a meticulously crafted union where stresses are distributed in all directions and resilient when forces challenge. My imagination is ringing with the melody of strengthen, even repairing a strained or failing joint. Join, conjoin, reconjoin…
Griffin Considers Winter Solstice: December 22, 2013 (Photo: Geo Davis)
Welcome to day one of the Adirondack Coast‘s coldest season. Today is the winter solstice, the first official day of winter, and — more importantly for the likes of my mother and others who favor longer days and shorter nights — the threshold between the briefest day and the most prolonged night and imperceptibly-but-steadily lengthening daylight. If you live in the North Country it seems peculiar that winter should only have just begun given several weeks of wintery weather. Seasonality, in these parts, might suggest a slightly earlier autumn-to-winter transition, closer to Thanksgiving than to Christmas.
But the choice is ours to remark and not to make, so we soberly observe this hibernal milestone with tempered optimism that sunnier days await us on the other side. And, for the astronomically exuberant, it’s time to celebrate. Cheers!
If you’re longing for more sunlight, Wednesday is a day to celebrate: Dec. 21 is the winter solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year — and first day of astronomical winter — in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s a sign that longer, brighter days are upon us. (Source: Justin Grieser, “First day of winter: Shortest day, longest night on December 21 solstice“, The Washington Post, December 21, 2022)
But, as with most tidy transitions, this threshold isn’t actually so tidy. Winter solstice may mark the shortest day and the longest night of the year, but the sunrise and sunset equation is slightly more muddled.
The bottom line: mornings will get a bit darker until early January, but we’ve already gained a few minutes of evening light. On balance, daylight will start to increase after Dec. 21, even as winter’s coldest days still lie ahead. (Source: Justin Grieser, “First day of winter: Shortest day, longest night on December 21 solstice“, The Washington Post, December 21, 2022)
So let’s focus on the lengthening days. And, if those increasingly cold days ahead bring snow, then let’s focus on that as well. After all, winter — proper, snowy winter — is one of our four favorite seasons of the year at Rosslyn! It’s a time for dog adventures, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, alpine and telemark skiing, bird feeders flush with avian wildlife, and that unique flavor or crystal clarity that only a subzero morning can catalyze.
Winter Solstice & Onward: December 21, 2022 (Image: Dark Sky)
And speaking of colder days ahead, this screenshot from Dark Sky appears to corroborate the generalization, albeit with a curious exception on Friday. Winter is here, and it looks probably that we’ll be able to enjoy a white Christmas (unless Friday’s warm weather melts the existing snow and delivers rain instead.)
In closing, note that the handsome Labrador retriever atop this post is not Carley, our current dog, but Griffin, a prior pal-o-mine. We lost him just over two years ago, and the ache hasn’t subsided. Maybe with longer, colder days ahead…
I’d like to introduce you to Redacting Rosslyn, the newest theme / navigational thread to join the original three: Wanderlust to Houselust, Archeology of Home, and Rehab Ad Infinitum. (Update: Yet another theme, Houselust to Wonderlust, was added circa 2020.) For the sake of clarity and candor, I should go full disclosure before getting in much deeper. Redacting Rosslyn is actually less of a theme than it is a catch-all. Since that’s a little misleading, I’d better clear matters up from the outset. Let’s start with the idea of redaction…
redactionnoun1 The process of editing text for publication.
1.1 The censoring or obscuring of part of a text for legal or security purposes.
1.2 A version of a text, such as a new edition or an abridged version.
Origin Late 18th century: from French rédaction, from late Latin redactio(n-), from redigere ‘bring back’. (Source: Oxford Dictionaries)
Early on in the process of transforming our home and lifestyle reboot into a story, I recognized that there wasn’t a nice tidy package for Rosslyn Redux. Or better put, I wasn’t successfully wrangling this adventure into a familiar format. A book, for example. This was my initial thought, but what sort of book. Memoir? How to? Thematically structured nonfiction? Lyric essay? Poems? Scrapbook?!?!
As I mucked around collecting and creating and curating content, I needed a temporarycontainer until I could formulate a plan. The blog was born. But soon it grew sprawling and unwieldy, so met with agents and editors to pick their brains. What’s a storyteller to do when his story is wayward and willfully independent? Their advice: make it a memoir, tighten the timeline (ideally no more than a year), and focus on my relationship with Susan.
I was unconvinced. That formula might well have been sellable, but a 1-year story about my marriage wasn’t really what interested me, and it certainly wasn’t the adventure I’d been exploring on Rosslyn Redux.
So I went rogue. I developed a short, solo performance piece to
explore whether or not the stage might be the best vehicle for telling our Rosslyn story,
solicit feedback from an audience (different than the blog, I presumed) about what sort of story they thought I should be creating. Maybe they could offer some fresh insight?
On August 3, 2011 I performed Redacting Rosslyn Redux at the Depot Theatre in Westport, and the experience transformed my understanding and hopes for the project. I’ve tackled the takeaways elsewhere, so I’ll try to stay on track here.
Let’s flip back to the idea of redaction for a moment.
Origin and Etymology of redaction
French rédaction, from Late Latin redaction-, redactio
act of reducing, compressing, from Latin redigere to bring back, reduce, from re-, red- re- + agere to lead (Source: Merriam-Webster)
Reducing, compressing, and bringing back are the crux. Although Redacting Rosslyn has evolved into a fourth theme, it’s really more of a meta look at my early decision to DIY this home rehab, my decision to morph the adventure into a storytelling project, and all of the other bizarre ancillary developments that I stumbled into as I became more and more obsessed with how (and why) to tell this story in this peculiar digital age.
It’s worth noting that the flavor profile for Redacting Rosslyn differs decidedly from Wanderlust to Houselust, Archeology of Home, Rehab Ad Infinitum, and Houselust to Wonderlust. I hope that the audience overlaps, but it probably 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…
My bride and I credit the vintage Adirondack lifestyle (and it’s 21st century progeny) for luring us away from Manhattan in 2006 to become North Country full-timers. But what exactly is the Adirondack lifestyle? And has the notion evolved from the time patinated vintage Adirondack stereotypes of yesteryear?
Still image from “Land of My Dreams”. (Source: Amateur Cinema)
Actually it’s not so easily defined, perhaps because there are so many different perspectives on what makes living (or even vacationing) in the Adirondacks desirable. High Peaks, Great Camps, cozy little lodges, Champlain Valley, agriculture, hunting, fly fishing, ice fishing, back country adventures, extreme sports, and the list goes on. Although a portrait of our Adirondack experience will evolve out of these blog posts, I won’t presently attempt to define the vintage Adirondack lifestyle. Though often attempted, any single face of of the Adirondack experience is an abstraction, often even a caricature or a stereotype. The real Adirondack experience is vast, rich and dynamic. It is precisely this richness and diversity which appeals to us. It is precisely this evolving character which inspires us to get involved with the people and organizations that have welcomed us.
Image by virtualDavis via Flickr
The video from which the still above was captured, the first in a series of three, is called Land of My Dreams and it was apparently created by Joseph J. Harley in the late 1940’s. It captures a nostalgic (if extremely dated) caricature of vintage Adirondack living, more precisely the rustic “camp” lifestyle popularized during the mid 1900s.
The story takes place on Bluff Island in the Adirondacks, Saranac Lake, New York. My great grandparents had a house that Joe built himself from scratch. The DEC took the house down after a law was made that people could only camp on certified islands in the lake. Joseph J. Harley was an amateur film maker who made many other movies and won awards for them. (YouTube.com)
Douglas Yu (@tourpro) over at Adirondack Base Camp put me onto this quirky vintage short, but he wasn’t able to share much more about the film or Harley. (Note: unfortunately these videos are now private, and no longer available.)
I couldn’t find much information about the filmographer, but at one point he was President of the American Cinema League.
Many of the artifacts that I’ve collected since purchasing Rosslyn fall into this hazy no-man’s land of vintage Adirondack collectibles (postcards, magazine advertisements, newspaper articles, brochures, videos, etc.) It’s challenging or impossible to determine the background for many of the artifacts, and they occasionally include dated or peculiar elements such as the “black face” character in the the second video. And yet, taken together they provide a context for the quirky tale I have to tell. I’ve decided that this blog is the perfect way to preserve and share these artifacts, characters and stories which don’t find their way into my Rosslyn Redux memoir or the Redacting Rosslyn monologues.
By collecting these artifacts into a “digital museum” I hope to showcase some of the esoteric ingredients of the vintage Adirondack lifestyle (and its contemporaneous offspring) which seduced us, aggravates us, intrigues us, perplexes us and inspires us in this new chapter of our lives.
Boathouse & Sailboat, September 22, 2020 (Source: Geo Davis)
Thwumpf! That’s the sound of a decade being swallowed whole (like a tidy-but-tasty amuse-bouche) by Rosslyn. Or by entropy. Maybe both. Ten sprawling, glorious years after pushing a post entitled Redacting Rosslyn v1.0 out into the universe I’m back on track with Redacting Rosslyn v2.0.
Yes, that’s a fairly ridiculous incubation period. A half dozen years of enthusiastic belly button gazing followed by an ellipsis that lingered so long it almost vanished like an old sepia photograph too long exposed to sunshine. Only ghostly shadows and faint silhouettes remain on the curling yellow paper.
But this interstitial reprieve was fecund. An abundance of living and laughter, family and friends, dreams and memories germinated, blossomed, and fruited in Rosslyn’s nurturing embrace. So much life.
Evidently I needed this Rosslyn experience in its voluptuous complexity to begin to disentangle my story.
Interstitial Adventure
Renovating Rosslyn *was* an adventure. Writing and editing Rosslyn Redux*is* an adventure. And Redacting Rosslyn is an interstitial adventure tucked into the folds of both, at once familiar and unfamiliar. And it demands new methods and rhythms, new risks, new exploration. In storytelling and writing, silence and white space are as important as voice and words. (Source: Redacting Rosslyn v1.0)
That wordy bundle first wandered into the world in Redacting Rosslyn v1.0. Little did I understand at the time how clairvoyant those words would be. Nor these conclusions that I teased out of a hand-me-down from Irish writer Kieron Connolly via Avery Oslo.
Each new work is unique, and its creation may well require different routines, different methods and habits and rhythms than previous creations. This will to adapt the creative process per the needs of each new creation is not only more realistic than the systematic, procrustean assembly line model, it’s more exciting. Each new creative experience should be an adventure. A journey. An exploration. This is what makes creating and telling a story so damned interesting! (“The Need for Flexibility)
In fact, that was one of the challenges for me. Relating Rosslyn’s rehabilitation story, intertwined with our own attempt at revitalization.
The key is to allow each project to be its own thing and deal with it in the way it ought to be dealt… (“The Need for Flexibility)
Sixteen years after plunging into renovating Rosslyn we are RE-renovating (house deck and the boathouse gangway and stairway) and finally tackling the looong postponed icehouse rehabilitation. Sweet sixteen. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Not because there’s a lot more building going on. But because there’s another significant transition in the offing, a transformation wrapped up inside this re-renovation and rehab. I’ll be opening up (hopefully with some thoughts from Susan) in the weeks and months ahead. It’s going to be a big year — no, potentially a few big years — for us. And Redacting Rosslyn v2.0 is in many respects possible because of (and inextricably tied to) our next new adventure. More on that anon, but for now allow me to say that it’s time for a fresh perspective, a new objective, and an urgency that didn’t exist in the early days of this adventure. And I’m confident that at long last I am moving forward again..
