Drastic Change: Paradise Lost, or Paradise Found

May was a tumultuous month, though not altogether unpleasant. Naturally, my birthday came and went, and I managed to have a good time! Now it is June and things are so completely different than they were back then, it's hard to know where to begin.

So, I suppose I can begin by saying I am nowhere near where I thought I would be, today. I had a great birthday--my grandmother took my daughter and me out to lunch at a nice restaurant and I got a massage and a facial. Later in the week, I had my "Always" tattoo finished and I am in love with it! What happened after my birthday was supposed to be a smooth transition. It was supposed to be smoother than any transition prior.

It wasn't. Instead of continuing on the course I had set with my husband, I was derailed by an intervention from my best friend. He was the one and only person in my life to point out the ways in which I was not living the way I wanted to. He was the one to point out why I was unhappy, while I ignored many problems that continued to grow within my home life. His intervention, with some help from his wife, really provoked me to take immediate action.

And so, instead of taking off to California at the end of May, I sat down in our ever-emptier house and began a conversation with my husband. I wasn't sure where I would end up in this conversation or even what I wanted him to say. The problem was, it seemed he only wanted to give me words I would want to hear. So, when he brought up the word "divorce," for probably the third time in the duration of our marriage, I thought about it seriously for the first time.

Where I am now is not where I wanted to be, but it has turned out to be better for me than I could have imagined. There are downsides, of course: The Internet usage is limited to 5GB per month until further notice; the computer I use does not have Microsoft Word for easy blog making; I have yet to figure out where or how I should set up my computer to do my art. But there are many upsides, as well: I unplug much more often and interact with my daughter and my family; I have my little girl on a meal and potty schedule and she is thriving under my care; I watch old Disney movies with my daughter every chance we get and I take her to the park at every opportunity to let her play. There is not a day that goes by in which she doesn't have a total blast playing with toys, watching cartoons, playing outside, and talking our ears off.

We're staying with my grandparents for now. I've begun seeing professionals in the Mental Health Clinic at the American Lake Veterans Association. My goal is to set up couples counseling, as it has always been my desire and my goal to have a healthy, lengthy marriage that is strong, stable, and lasts. Unfortunately, shortly after I expressed my desire to set up couples counseling, my husband took off in his car across Canada, driving east back to his home state. I hope he is happy, staying with his mother and receiving the validation he so craves.

Meanwhile, I have paid off several overdue bills related to our relationship and the house we rented together. I have realized, with help from family and friends, there are many ways in which I allowed myself to feel the way I did and I allowed him to make me feel worse. There are many things coming to light in his absence that have been shocking, disheartening, and even heartwarming.

We are halfway through June. The difficulty has only just begun. I've broken down crying, sobbing my eyes out while I was home alone, over ideas of what I should do for myself and my daughter. I've received various messages from him and responded as kindly and pleasantly as possible, while the nastiest and dirtiest thoughts crossed my mind. He called me hateful and spiteful and I know those things are inside of me but they are not what run my life.

I will never again allow someone to dictate my life in such a way that I act out in hateful, spiteful ways, nor will I allow someone again to make me feel as though everything I do is pointless. Regardless of who did what while we were together, I know now how to make myself feel good about myself. It is a process. It is a practice. It is difficult. It is not a linear path; I fall and I have to get back up. But now that the rotten apple has fallen from the tree, the tree is growing yet again and it's healthier than ever.

Efforts in Futility

Nothing hurts me more than disrespect from someone who has asked for my help and accepted my extended hand. Nothing disappoints me more than someone who has requested help yet refuses to help themselves.

            My hand extends to every person who deserves it. I do not always know who deserves it and who doesn’t, and so my default reaction to a request for help is to respond in as helpful a way as I know how. Sometimes, my response is to ignore the request either because I do not have the resources, or because my resources are limited and I must care for myself, my family, and my household first.

            My assistance is not free, but I do not charge money for the service I provide. I charge resources. Guests—extended guests, more specifically—and couch surfers are charged in the form of food and other items consumed. Usually, these people also pay us back monetarily, but this is not required except by those who board here.

            We have four boarders and one applicant to our lease and things in the house tend to run smoothly. Two of these boarders will be moving out in the very near future, but we refused to let them get into paying rent at another hotel because it is unsustainable in every sense of the word. These people are our friends. We do not invite strangers into our home. Ours is a family home, first and foremost and always. Even when Persephone is gone, this remains a family home, no matter what amazing acts of sexual exploration occur.

            Recently, we paid for one of my friends to fly from her location to our state. We picked her up at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport baggage claim carousel. We brought her into our home, explaining in the car on the way that our primary expectation was for her to listen to us and do what we say as well as keep to her own word and do what she says she will. She agreed on all fronts. She met Stacie, our boarders, and our new swinging partners. She is a male-to-female transgendered individual with severe psychological issues, so, I promised to get her to the Department of State and Health Services and the Social Security Administration in order to get her started with food stamps and Medicaid. She failed to get her food card because she failed to tell the truth of her homelessness—after all, she was to board at my house and give back by cleaning. We were providing literally everything for her. So, she didn’t get her card, but she ravaged our food supplies and ate foods that had been planned for meals.

            There’s more. She disrespected every single person in my home. She disrespected the space of every person in my home and she disrespected my belongings and the belongings of every person in my home, whether staying or visiting. I told her to stop touching things that don’t belong to her. She continued to move things around that weren’t hers, such as my books and Pat’s bong, and she would take drinks that weren’t hers and drink them, such as Pat’s Rockstar and Marie’s can of coffee. She was absolutely insufferable and she did not understand the mere concept of personal space or boundaries. We told her multiple times to give us space and not to touch us, yet she continued to hover over people, stare at people uncomfortably, and invade their space by standing mere inches from them and touching or leaning on their shoulders.

            I went so far as to write a contract for her as a boarder in my home. I itemized basic respect and consideration, yet she spat on it. She basically said, without speaking, “Fuck you and everything you are trying to do for me.” After all, we took her to DSHS and the Social Security office. We took her to Goodwill and Value Village, because we do not have the incomes we had recently, and we purchased ladies’ clothes for her so that she would feel more comfortable in her own body and feel as though she was moving forward in her life. I gave her space in my study to keep her things and to sleep, yet she disrespected the space by spreading her belongings all over the place, taking over space on my desk and taking my books off of my shelves and failing to put them away properly.

            Four days. That was all. She didn’t last a day past the fourth, as she broke her contract the moment she signed it and did so repeatedly—lashing out for attention like a neglected two-year-old. She is 28. She made everyone so uncomfortable that every single person who had any means or future means of income was offering to pay to get her out of our house. Randy purchased a Greyhound ticket for her to go back to her home in Tennessee. He spent nearly $300 on this ticket, after spending nearly $200 on her flight here from Montana, and after spending at least $100 on clothes, food, weed, and drinks for her. That’s a conservative estimate.

            She checked in at the Greyhound station, then ripped up her tickets and ditched the station in favor of a bar on 4^th Ave. We heard this from her girlfriend, who called the house phone (since Becca had been using it to call her girlfriend) and told Randy what was going on. Somehow, Randy ended up speaking to Becca’s mother, who begged Randy to ensure that Becca get on a train to Tennessee. I understand Randy having empathy for Becca’s mom, as a parent, but the fact of the matter is, at this point, we simply cannot and will not support Becca in any way any longer. She is no longer our responsibility, plain and simple. Point blank. The way I see it, there are two options, because Becca’s mother offered to reimburse Randy for the cost of a ticket. Becca’s mom can either reimburse us for the ticket we already bought, or she can buy a new ticket for Becca and Randy can track the bitch down and make sure she gets on it. Either way, we are not about to buy another ticket for her.

            I cannot believe the level of disregard she had. I did not expect it in any way. When I had spoken to her online, she had come across as level-headed and sane, for the most part. When she got here, she could not actually adjust or settle in with the group. She could not stop focusing on whatever obsession she had and when she got high, it was an exacerbated problem. So, we cut her off, but she didn’t improve…

            The effort I put into this person has been reciprocated to me by all of the people in my home. Pat, Nikki, Stacie, Leo, Kayla—everyone who has either visited or stayed in my home and witnessed what happened with Becca has been highly supportive and helpful, taking all of the stress that they can off of Randy and me. My house is being cleaned right now without my or Randy lifting a finger, because we have an internal inspection tomorrow and we have a lot of people here but we are overwhelmed, personally.

            Becca was one example of many people I have attempted to help. There are other friends I’ve lost through much the same way, including Mary and Alex. I simply cannot tolerate someone asking for help and then shitting on the help that is offered, nor can I tolerate someone failing to uphold their word to help me. Now, I feel as though I am at a crossroads, in a way, though I’m not sure that’s the right euphemism. Now, I am working to help someone who is not really a friend, but who has reached out to me for help due to a mutual friend.

            This person believes people hate her when they do not. Her anxiety and depression push people away and she recognizes it yet fails continuously to take action to correct it. That’s okay, except that she simply ignores advice that is given to her—or, she has, so far. The one time she took my advice, things went well. We went out and had a social outing at a café, where we got coffee and tea and played chess. It was a good time and I told her how good it was. Now, I’m telling her that she needs to take care of herself and she’s telling me she doesn’t know how, but when I tell her what she can do to help herself, she makes excuses for why she can’t do it.

            She says her excuses are legitimate reasons, but the fact of the matter is that she is allowing her depression to run her life completely. I’m telling her what she can do and she is not doing it, she’s claiming that she is “trying.” And so I said as Yoda said.

            “Do or do not. There is no try.” And I said what Gizmo says. “Trying is dying.”

            I am tired. Those who energize me are the ones I keep because I am sick of putting effort into futile endeavors. It was an effort in futility and it had a pretty steep cost to help Becca. I do not want to think it is an effort in futility to help this severely depressed woman in Tacoma, but frankly, I’m seeing all the same red flags. I cannot help those who cannot or will not help themselves. It is that simple.

Anxiety and Depression: Roots in Childhood

All good parents want the same thing: Health and wellness for their children. As we propel ourselves into the future, parents take action and give more and more thought to better provide healthful foods and activities for their children. Studies that prove the detrimental effects on children of such disciplinary practices as spanking and yelling resonate with today’s new parents on unprecedented levels, encouraging parents to be gentler and kinder when shaping the personalities and characteristics of their children. This article aims to let parents know what they may be doing wrong and why their kids may act out more than others.

            The purpose of this entry is to shed light on the ways in which parents are unwittingly damaging to their children, how they can better support their children moving forward, and what happens to children who grow up without proper support from their families. To accomplish this goal, I will tell my own life’s story as a means of letting others out there know that they are not alone. Abuse takes many forms and we do not have to lie down and take it.

            My life started like any other girl’s life in the early 1990s. I was born in a secular hospital to a mother who had been abused most of her life since childhood, did not know how to tell someone “no,” and wanted nothing more than to work as a secretary while raising her children in a farmhouse with horses in the fields. My father was a tweaker.

            I fit in perfectly to the heteronormative expectations of our society, always a people pleaser. Early on, I lived with my mom, but it wasn’t long before I lived with my dad, who, unbeknownst to me, did not make me his first priority and that’s why he would yell and spank me if I didn’t tell him what he wanted to hear, even if what I said was the truth. It didn’t take long for him to get rid of me so he could focus entirely on himself and his addiction, though. Before the age of 5, I was living with his mother and her husband, none the wiser to his habits or any of the reasons behind my not living with my own mother.

            Those were the easy days. Kindergarten and first grade were the best years of my life. I had friends, teachers loved me, I was social, I fit in exactly the way I wanted to—exactly the way I was supposed to. I was a good kid. I was happy and I didn’t think very deeply about my mom or dad because they were just never around. It didn’t matter whether they were there or not because I lived in a nuclear household with the only exception being that the “parents” were actually my grandparents. Before first grade ended, though, my mother filed to take custody of me and my grandparents asked me if I wanted to go live with her.

            At the time, I could not fathom why I hadn’t been living with my mother all along, so I eagerly accepted the idea of moving to her house and being with her. I knew that my dad was not always nice to me. He liked to tease me, make fun of me, tickle me too much, yell at me, and spank me. Surely, my mother would be much better, I thought. I was wrong in the way only those who have made a decision that ultimately lead to various health problems would understand.

            My mother was neglectful. She would pay no attention to me, leaving me entirely to my own devices, unless it was a meal time or she thought I’d done something wrong, at which time she would yell at me either way. Yelling for food is one thing—most parents do it and it is not a detrimental practice—but when she would yell about the disobedience she perceived, it was a different story. My grandparents would drop me off at my mother’s house and I would scream bloody murder and cry as if my cat had died, clinging for dear life to the elders who provided me safety, security, good hygiene, prescription spectacles that were aesthetically pleasing, and clothes that fit.

            My paternal grandmother took notes. Every time I came back for a visit, she would check me over and note anything that construed child abuse. The welts on my butt from wooden spoon paddlings were the most obvious sign. What she couldn’t see or record was the true damage done to my psyche, but that is not to discredit her by saying she failed to record any important information. On the contrary, her notes were thorough enough to use in court, as that was their intention, and outlined everything from the lice on my head to the dirt in my toenails.

            There was one thing that didn’t make it to my grandma’s notes, one thing that was significant enough to change the way I saw myself for years to come: My mother told me I wasn’t pretty. Explained to me later, as an adult, my mother said that her reasoning behind such a statement was that she was told the same thing as a child. I don’t see how that justifies such abusive language—there is no way to justify abuse—but I don’t hold it against her because now I understand her mental illness, not just how it affects me. The other significant abusive event was when my mother’s boyfriend molested me, continuing to touch my private parts after I told him “No,” and “Stop,” multiple times.

            When he came into my room, lay down on my bed, and began feeling me up, it was the climax to the abuse I’d endured from him over the course of my stay with my mother. Previous abuse, I had tolerated, but this time, I told him to stop. Instead, he licked my earlobe and I could not protest due to the laughter generated from the tickling sensation of his tongue. Previous abuses fled my mind. All that mattered was that he had woken me up and all I wanted to do was sleep, but he would not leave. I was appalled—he had always stopped when I told him to, before. He tugged my pajama pants down and I said, “No,” and he told me to let go. I struggled, my tiny, 9-year-old fingers holding onto the hem of my pants for dear life as this middle-aged man forced the fabric from my grip, baring my legs and letting the cool air of the room violate my sensitive, prepubescent skin.

            “Don’t tell anyone,” an earnest, hushed, panicky request, sounded like a joke when the unwelcome stench of his spunk filled the room and the gooey, sticky substance rendered my blankets unusable. How was I to keep this thing a secret when I had told him I didn’t want him to do it in the first place? I was a good girl and I had been told that it was the right thing to tell on someone who was not respecting your autonomous desires. So, I did. I told my best friend, then my older brother, then my mother. The reactions of the first two were bolstering; the third reaction left me confused and damaged.

            My best friend listened with sympathy and offered me her support. My older brother began scouring the property for blunt force objects including crowbars and baseball bats, with which he intended to beat my offender over the head until death. My mother looked at me and said, “Keep it in the house. Don’t tell anyone else.”

            I was hurt and confused, but I listened to her. I didn’t tell anyone else, so when the cops arrived at the house, I couldn’t figure out why. It turned out my brother had told a neighbor girl whose mother had alerted the authorities. My mother’s boyfriend, the father of my second-youngest brother, was hauled away and I was taken to the hospital for examination given the nature of the crime.

            The hospital gave me an adult-sized, preheated, white blanket that I wrapped around myself, taking comfort and solace in its heat and security. I would keep this blanket for nearly a decade before deciding it served as nothing more than a reminder of my trauma. They looked me over, checked my insides for seed, and then let me go, never once losing their faces of friendliness, concern, and compassion.

            With her boyfriend gone, my mother was faced with homelessness, a fact to which I was clueless in part due to a complete lack of understanding that people could actually fail to find housing. Thinking of what was best for her children in the best way she could think of—all the while telling me it was my fault he was gone, my fault she was facing eviction again, and my fault my baby brother would never see his daddy again—encouraged her to allow me to move back to my grandparents’ house, the very house from which she had taken me.

            I thought I could be happy again. I thought moving back under my grandparents’ roof would somehow fix everything and make it right. The reality turned out to be very different, taking instead the form of further abuse from my mother. Phone calls from my mother greatly upset me as she would yell and scream at me over the phone, telling me that her circumstances were my fault, leading to the purchase of a speaker phone that would allow my grandmother to listen to the entire conversation and help me cut it off when the time was right. I never thought that I needed actual guidance, encouragement, or attentiveness to my development as a 9-year-old child.

            It was not until after I separated from the military that I realized the depth of my childhood ignorance. The advice my grandparents gave me was sound and given with the best intentions, but I thought the advice lacked encouragement. I thought it lacked the kind of rhetoric that makes a child think, “I can do this!” and instead included the kind of rhetoric that makes a child think, “I’d better not try it.” Case in point: When I told my grandma that I wanted to go to art school because my dream was to be an artist, her words were, “What are you going to do with it? Are you going to be a starving artist?” This was a significant exchange, one of many smaller exchanges, that caused lasting damage despite the fact that it was not the entirety of the conversation or even the whole of her advice.

            My grandparents found a counselor for me immediately after the sexual abuse incident. The counselor told them I’m strong and they trusted me when I told them I no longer needed therapy. I had no way of realizing the depths of my mental illness or how it would manifest later in my life. Pieces of conversations are missing from my memory, leaving me with the damaging pieces and not the helpful bits. Phrases like, “That’s not helpful,” stick in my mind, while encouragements like, “You could look into doing a double major,” fall short of my mental registration. The therapist I saw as a teenager was unable to target all of this, but she was able to pinpoint my mother as the root cause of my insatiable rage, thus provoking me to write a large series of violent poems directed at my mother.

            I was lucky. I had access to care, no matter what. I had family members who honestly and truthfully looked out for the best for me. They were not perfect. No one is. Every parent is going to say something damaging to their child. The important thing is to heal the wounds as much as possible. When I finally swallowed my anxiety and called my mother from Germany, I was pleasantly surprised by her response and my ability to have a full conversation with her that ultimately led to the healing of our relationship. When I mentioned to my grandmother her response to my desire to be an artist, she came back a little later and reminded me of the rest of the conversation, giving me a better understanding and helping reassure me that my childhood was not actually as terrible as I had come to believe as a disabled veteran.

            If the most important thing is communication, though, my dad falls short and always has. Where my mother grew and became healthier, my dad has stagnated in that I feel more comfortable of talking to my mother about any issue I have than I am comfortable talking to my dad. I have gone through the forgiveness process with my dad as much as my mom, for they were both equally nonexistent for much of my childhood, though in different ways. When I called my mom from Germany, it was with the goal of forgiving her for the neglect and abuse of my childhood. It went well. Forgiving my dad felt much more forced because he came clean from drugs and practically demanded forgiveness.

            Forgiveness cannot be forced or demanded. Demanding or forcing forgiveness is a good way to eliminate all possibilities of future forgiveness. When my dad came clean and said, “Yeah, I’ve been doing methamphetamines. I would get clean for a short while and get my shit together, then I’d go get loaded and lose it all.” It explained the pattern of behavior I so abhorred in him as a child and with his insistence and my grandmother’s willingness to listen and forgive him, I found myself sucked into his web of deceit. Deception in the form of words that assured me that he would turn around and be a good father. A supportive dad who would actually care about me and encourage me towards my goals. I thought the elimination of drugs from his life would turn him around. I was wrong—not in that he ever relapsed, because he is still clean, but in that his attitude never changed. His way of approaching me never changed.

            It is important that one day, I forgive my father. It is important to forgive those who hurt us, not to excuse their behavior or even to say it was, is, or ever will be okay, but to relieve ourselves of the negative emotions that we harbor without forgiveness. Parents are imperfect. Now that I am a parent, I have a much deeper understanding of what my mother went through. I also have a much better understanding of the ways in which my father has interacted with me throughout my life. I interact with my daughter in many similar ways to how my dad interacted with me when I was young. I also interact wither her in ways my mother interacted with me. But more than that, I have the best example of a parent I could ever have asked for: My husband.

            Without my husband, it is likely I would not be writing this blog post. It is likely that I would not recognize the abusive nature of my father’s rhetoric. So, I will close with advice for parents. Perhaps it will seem cliché. Perhaps it will seem overdone or unsolicited—parents get so much advice already, who am I, as a newbie mom, to interject?

            I’ll tell you who I am. I am a woman. I am a disabled veteran who suffers from major depressive disorder, persistent postpartum depression, generalized anxiety triggered by certain social interactions, and PTSD from not only my time in the military, but also from the course of my life.

            So, to parents, I have this to say: Listen to your children. When they tell you their dreams and aspirations, think before you speak. Make sure your FIRST words are words of encouragement, not of advice or caution. It is good to caution our children of the dangers in life, but it is more important to ensure that our children feel strong, confident, and capable of facing the challenges ahead.

            Be mindful of your reactions towards your children. When your son or daughter spills an entire gallon of milk onto the kitchen floor, take a deep breath before you speak. Walk away if the adrenaline is making your hands shake. Take your child to the side, away from the mess, to explain to them why their actions were wrong. Demonstrate what they must do to make it right and lead them to do it themselves—with the gallon of milk example, clean it up with them, but make sure they do most of the work and remain positive while doing it. There is nothing in the world harder than keeping your cool when your child is testing your last nerve. But that is the absolute most important thing any parent can do for their kids. Keep your cool, remain positive, and encourage more than you advise.

Rethinking Overpopulation

My studies have taken me on many trains of thought as I’ve read about sustainability, architecture, agriculture, and more. One of my major assignments, due soon, is a presentation based on a book. The book I’ve chosen is Biomimicry. It has given me more ideas than any other book up to it that I’ve read for class. This blog entry is about using biomimicry, including the Cradle to Cradle design, something I’ve just learned about today that is a holistic, biomimetic approach to human life, to put it simply.

            I have often told my friends that humans are overpopulating the Earth. I have touted sources, pointed at population numbers, indicated pollution levels and natural decimation by human hands and I have advocated the use of eugenics to help fix the human problem. Today, however, I found myself digesting the words of a piece of text titled “Life Upcycles.” I don’t know where it’s from or who the author is; it was passed out in class for everyone to read. I’m glad for it because it has brought up some highly interesting points.

            Frequently, I think to compare humans to other animals on Earth. I compare us to octopi, who demonstrate great amounts of intelligence yet die before passing it on to the next generation. I compare us to cattle, who live lazily in comparison to the hustle and bustle of humanity. In all of this comparison, however, I never thought to look at such creatures as ants or even sheep in order to learn from them. My comparisons were always aimed at persuading my listener that humans are a shitty species and we have to do something to change it. I’ve never had suggestions for how to change it, as I have hoped to come across someone with ideas of their own. Finally, I have found the kind of ideas I have sought for so long and it seems kind of fitting that the answer was in text rather than in a social interaction.

            Ants are a highly organized species. Every single last ant that exists on Earth has a job, a purpose, including their “children”. What surprised me to learn was that ants actually have a higher collective biomass than humans—the equivalent of about 35 billion people. What Life Upcycles thinks about this is that humans can easily live happily and sustainably on Earth, using Cradle to Cradle, with a population of 10 billion.

            The point brought up by my text that has me rethinking my entire argument on overpopulation is this: Instead of telling us that we need to have “zero emissions,” or we have to “stop” doing things, it would be better for us to create objects and buildings that work with the environment rather than separately from it. It seems like a rather complex statement to me because it is a new idea for which I have little understanding. We, as people and including myself, have a habit of telling each other all of the ways in which we need to be “less bad,” but not of telling each other how we can do “more good.” So, how can we do more good?

            The first steps have already been taken. We are doing less bad. Companies and businesses everywhere tout the ways in which they are reducing costs, reducing waste, reducing badness. In addition, we now have things in place such as LEED and the Living Building Challenge, meaning that architecture is moving forward in a way that may allow us as humans to live and work on this planet in a more symbiotic way.

            When we rethink overpopulation, it is important to note that carbon is not inherently bad. We have come to think of “carbon” and “emissions” as four-letter words: bad things that must be eradicated in order for our species to avoid auto-annihilation. When we see companies advertising goals for “zero emissions,” we think, “Great! Yes! Good!” But is it, really? After all, take a look at the advertising images: Often, companies bragging about “zero emissions” use images like trees to indicate how “green” they want to be. The thing is, though, trees are not emission-free.

            Trees emit oxygen. Oxygen is an emission of trees and the more trees there are, the taller and older they get, the more oxygen they emit. So, rather than saying we should strive for “zero emissions,” we should look at what we are emitting. Trees essentially eat carbon dioxide, which we exhale. As Life Upcycles puts it, “emissions are breathing.” So, how can we create an environment—a habitat for humanity—that breathes, rather than exuding toxins? That is my question as we move forward.

            No longer will I so ignorantly claim that humans are in overpopulation. No longer will I so ignorantly advocate the use of eugenics as a solution when other opportunities abound. Finding the opportunities is the trick.

Sustainability: Architecture and Words

My blog is overdue for a new post, and what better topic than sustainability?

            As I’ve mentioned, the program I’m currently taking at The Evergreen State College is called Sustainability: Reimagining the Built Environment and the Written Word. I’ve missed a lot of class and a couple of assignments but I don’t think I’m failing and I don’t think I’ll fail, I just think I’ve been pretty overwhelmed by the wealth of knowledge available on this topic and all the ideas that come to mind every time I read new text related to what we do in class.

            I have a huge project coming up. I get to design a building or group of buildings, essentially, that meets LEED requirements and may even qualify for the Living Building Challenge. This means I have to do this project with practicality in mind and suggest using absolutely NO new materials. Everything must be recycled and reused.

            I suppose now is a good time to cover a couple of things. First: LEED. What is LEED? I certainly didn’t know what it was before taking this program so I wouldn’t expect you to know it by sight. “Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design,” is a “certification program focused primarily on new, commercial-building projects and based upon a points system.” Source.

            Second: The Living Building Challenge. Details, naturally, can be found at their official website. Put simply, the Living Building Challenge seeks to create “regenerative spaces that connect occupants to light, air, food, nature, and community.” When my class took a field trip to Seattle to tour the Bullitt Building, we learned some basics of the Living Building Challenge. To us, it was explained that the building has sensors that detect the amount of air flow through the building and the amount of sunlight filtering through the windows. The Bullitt Building, specifically, has outdoor shades that lower and raise depending on the level of sunlight coming through windows on the building. The sun on the east may cause eastern window shades to lower, while western window shades stay up high to allow the shaded side of the building to get more natural light. Solar panels on the roof provide the majority of energy to the building—in the case of the Bullitt Building, I believe they actually became energy positive many times and thus sold energy to Puget Sound Energy, making money rather than spending it on electricity. Ventilation of the building and plumbing all revolve around sustainability and reuse.

            The Living Building Challenge is far more interesting to me than LEED. While I think that both are great and necessary in today’s world, moving forward, I think the Living Building Challenge is one that all new designs should strive for. It has seven “Petals,” or performance areas, each of which has its own requirements, also known as imperatives. The petals are Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity, and Beauty. In order for a building to meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge, they must meet all imperatives of at least 4 Petals.

            This design assignment, reusing materials and applying adaptive reuse to the spaces they want to use for this project, has me thinking of the “Mistake on the Lake,” or the Capitol Center Building, a blight on the landscape standing nine stories high in concrete, steel, and glass. Straight lines, a flat roof, and an earthquake-proof foundation despite sitting on fill in a flood zone. The architecture of the gutted, long-deserted building in the midst of many of Olympia’s public services is ugly not by design, but rather neglect and disrepair and I think that most, if not all of its materials can be taken and used for the new spaces this project seeks to create for artists in Olympia.

            There are many sites with articles covering what locals call the Mistake on the Lake. All of these articles explore a couple of ideas for adaptive reuse of the building, which has been grandfathered into the area that today has a developmental height limit of 35 feet. The Capitol Center Building cannot be added to or expanded due to new architectural codes in the area and many, if not most of the residents in Olympia would rather see the eyesore taken down rather than renovated. The steel and glass standing nine stories high could be taken and used for the artists’ spaces we have been assigned to design.

            New ideas come to my mind every time I read something new about sustainable architecture. Even if I’m reading about old buildings that do not meet new LEED certifications or Living Building requirements, I find ideas coming to mind of how we can use old aesthetics and new methods of design to create beautiful, sustainable architecture that brings people together and makes a place “pop”. I find myself incapable of articulating these ideas to my faculty and often, I even find difficulty transcribing my ideas to my journal. I hope that this blog entry clears up a little space in my head, files away a couple of thoughts that clutter my mind, and allows me to clearly formulate and articulate the ideas I have for this major assignment.