HOW I BECAME AN ARCHITECT: PART ONE - INDELIBLE MOMENTS TO START THE JOURNEY

We all have moments that remain etched in our minds forever. A memory is simply an experience that has since passed. I find it so interesting that our lives are truly broken down into sequential moments, or pictures in time, frozen like an image on a single frame of film. You can recall something as simple as walking down the hall, or that joyful instant when you realize that the conversation you have entered is a really good one. Moments are what make us and our lives are consumed by the drive to create more positive and lasting ones.

We go through the motions daily and sometimes forget that each second is filled with an opportunity to make a moment. The moments do not need to be striking, they can simply be a personal insight or a private reflection, maybe fun and devious, maybe tinged with some pain.

It is late right now, my spouse and child are fast asleep, yet I am awake thinking through the various spans of time. I am so blessed. I am the most damaged yet so fortunate. I was born during a great time in a great place. I have seen things in the world and reality has a way of instigating appreciation for where you are from, where you are, and where you are going. When we begin to view the millions of moments we are fortunate to have, we can see how awesome everything really is.

I like to focus on the here and now, but once in a while I look back to moments that I want to review. Our existence is constantly bombarded as a way to stratify society into order. I tend to embrace the moments of reflection and understand that humans have the unique ability to control time through remembrance and visualization. Maybe we do live in multiple dimensions simultaneously, the physical and the cognitive. I can relive a moment and learn or paint new pictures in my mind in a way that is spatially realistic and interactive even though it is just in my mind. It is strange but I see things in that way. It is like a moving picture. I can sometimes pick out the detail, but I can see things moving about like watching a film. You can utilize this to retrace your steps or draw new steps to take.

When I reflect, I find myself thinking about my time in architecture school. I do not reminisce because it was the greatest of times. I look at that time as a source of motivation. That was a very difficult time for me personally and emotionally. The thing that keeps me level is that I know that there are many that have gone through greater challenges. Those are the stories that I enjoy listening to. We live in a world where we speak to our successes and achievements. There is nothing wrong with that at all. I believe that we should all shed the judgement and always be at our best. It is tough sometimes because we fell like we need to preserve the feelings of others. I make my best attempts but I am going to be as awesome as I can in a very kind spirited way. I want to be awesome and I want others to be awesome as well; there is enough to go around.

I do not recall how it came about but I thought about the day I left home and moved to Los Angeles. It is not a far move but for me it felt like travelling a million miles. I did not have much to bring with me, and I did not have a car to take it up north. My last vehicle had died and I was reluctant to spend the money to rent a van. A great friend of mine had an idea: The delivery driver at his job had a delivery close to L.A. once a week. He set it up to have the driver take me up there. This was great news!

There were a few conditions however. First, I needed to be prepared to have my stuff together when he called. The driver would not be able to wait for me to get my things together.

Second, I could not meet him at the shop. He would have to pick me up but he could not pick me up at home. Our meeting place needed to be close to the shop, but not too close.

Third, I could not go with him to the delivery location. That included my own body and all my stuff. He would have to drop me and my things off somewhere, make the delivery, then pick me up again.

That was the deal and I agreed, no problem. The day to travel came and I borrowed a truck to get my things to the agreed upon place, a liquor store a quarter of a mile down the road. I waited there with my things for almost an hour. He showed up, loaded the box truck and we were on our way.

We drove for an hour or so and had a good conversation. I had never met this driver before but he was personable. It was nice to have someone to chat with to avoid the long silence on the road. We did have things in common; I worked at that company many years prior. Actually, I was the first one to work there and my neighborhood friends followed. They would go on to out last me there by many years. I think at one point in time, we had something like five or six guys from the neighborhood working there. Many of my friends worked there off and on. It was interesting to se how things had changed.

I was finishing community college and it was at a point in my life where nothing was materializing. I always felt like college was going to be this super elixir. I always imagined that it was going to be this magical place where all my problems were going to be solved. Maybe that is the myth for neighborhood kids, or maybe it was just that way for me. I thought going to the big university was the all encompassing cure. What I did not realize, and what I understand is part of my message to the younger generation, is that the big university is the place where your challenges materialize. Many become disillusioned by the constant challenge and do not understand that this is a place of setting and pressing boundaries.

I am one who, at the time, could not understand the meaning of all of this. It took some very strong experiences to make me understand the meanings and the development of my “project” or even a life’s work. I am fortunate that I was able to have this epiphany during my fourth year and understood what my personal challenge was going to be and what I needed to do to overcome adversity. I also learned the difference between me and my colleagues. Coming in contact with other students who had great advantages was another blessing. One student’s father was a large developer. One had both parents that were architects. More than a few came from families with great wealth and others were just smarter and savvier that I had ever imagined. It was such a great experience even though I just did not seem to fit like the round peg in the square hole. When that occurs, there is damage all around; the peg loses the edged and the hole becomes irregular.

I see that my stream of thought has developed a wonderful digression! Back to the delivery truck ride.

An hour into the ride, we exit the highway and enter an industrial park littered with stubby tilt-up concrete buildings. The place was teaming with trucks and traffic. The driver pulls over on the shoulder and says that the company he is heading to is around the corner. We get out unload my things on the side of the road and he takes off to unload the truck at the warehouse.

So here I am, happy as can be, waiting on the side of a busy road. I have my mattress, a desk, a chair, and a small nightstand. This event occurred prior to smartphones and I did not have a book with me. I just sat in that rickety computer chair for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably thirty minutes. I vividly remember thinking “this probably looks pretty bad.”

As I write this now, I am laughing out loud at the thought. It is still so detailed in my mind that I could paint the scene on a canvas. I can see it like a movie. I can remember what I was seeing and I remember what I was feeling.

I should have been more embarrassed. Sure, it was sort of strange sitting out there with all this stuff. It was like a one man corner garage sale. If anyone looked they must have seen this guy sitting in that chair with a subtle smirk. I was heading off to a new world and a new life. I was going to make new friends and find partners that wanted to collaborate and go into business. I was entering a place where I would write the second stanza of my life. Yes, they could have cared less if I went to school there or not; they told me directly so I know. But that did not even matter, I was accepted, I was going, I was committed to finish the mission and I was there.

Life is great. All those moments are the beautiful facets that make life special. The building industry is filled with powerful people. At the university I would interact with these students and wonder how I fit into the conversation. I was rebellious and conflicted, which drove people away even further. What I ultimately learned was that the advantage I have is a unique story. It is interesting and unique to me and that is all that matters I guess. What is interesting is that of all the things that I spoke of during my time at the university, I never spoke of these stories. I never spoke about these things in any sort of detail. I spoke of the neighborhood and various levels of “adversity,” but I never brought forth any depth. That might have been part of the problem. Maybe if I would have opened up more the journey would have been different. It does not matter now, but it is interesting to ponder. Honestly, I do not believe it mattered because no one cared, including myself.

After being “rescued” by the delivery driver from the roadside, we travelled north for another half hour. Finally, we arrived at the house I was staying at. I unloaded my things, shared my gratitude with the driver, and sent him on his way. So there I was, I had officially arrived. Many events had transpired to get to this moment. I can still see the dark green house in the background and the short chain-link fence out front. I can see the afternoon light shimmering through the leaves of the large tree that was overhanging the street. There was this moment of freedom. There were so many dreams that were dashing around all at once. There was tremendous apprehension, but an equal amount of optimism and excitement.

The thing with having a unique story is that no matter what your story is, others will always interpret it how they see it and how it fits their vision of you in their mind. I heard someone say: if you do not write your story then someone else will. That concept was especially important for me. I think when those that go through tough times and have an arrival, there are already multiple stories being written. I understood clearly, before I arrived, there was the potential to create a magnificent new chapter to overcome the chapters already written.

I remember spending a great deal of time thinking about this. I always felt that it was important to make the most of life and go after it - create the experiences and create interesting events. I guess our stories are always being written whether we are a participant or not. I decided to allow the interpretations or externalities exist and flourish without my reaction or response. Rather than get out in front and allow the interpretations to counter, I would stay in the background and set out to counter later. I realized long ago that there was too much building to do. I realized long ago that the challenge was not providing the answers, but rather, asking the more important questions.

Is there more? Yes. So much more.