We seem to have rounded a curve at Eden Hill. For years, we planned and dreamed. For months, we made our way out of the earth, constructed the walls and cemented a profile. It was all momentous in the sense of building a monument — impactful in the sense of consuming space. There was a surreal aspect to the endeavor. This wasn’t a house, yet, but a sculpture in the shape of a house.
Then it got windows and a few doors, and the sculpture was more convincing but still was just a shell, a suggestion of what a house might be. And the plumbers rolled through and the electricians, and there are wires and pipes, but they don’t lead anywhere yet nor illuminate much of anything.
The moment blue board started going up and covering those pipes and wires was interestingly transformative. Overnight, a sculpture of a house gained meaning and purpose. Nothing had, in truth, change. And yet, everything had. A space wasn’t a void within a shell, but a room. A hall wasn’t a framed suggestion but a path to be followed.
What had felt conceptual became solid and real, and also scary. Each decision feels far weightier now, a misstep more consequential even as we know that it may take months or years to even see where we strayed.
In the small garden pond that we put in as an Earth Day activity in 2024, a water lily bloom presses up towards the surface. It can feel the sun as it stretches, yet must be patient. This must be hardest right before it breaks the surface. We, too, must hold fast to a route and a purpose.
We must also practice patience, biding our time until the destination is reached.
