Out West / Back East

I was scheduled for a final site walk at one of our projects last Tuesday, so I flew into Denver Sunday morning for a mini-vacation prior to.  The oddity of business travel is that you are always going to but you never really get anywhere.  I have recently however, made a conscious effort to get some local everywhere I go and as this was the last site visit, I saw an opportunity to do a little more than the ordinary.  I took it.  I of course had a list of what I wanted to do/see and I of course didn’t do/see a lot of what was on that list.  The things I did manage to accomplish were wonderful.

After the comped upgrade to first class, on-time blue sky flight and Tesla playing on satellite radio when I fired up the rental I felt like I was on track for a perfect Sunday afternoon.  Driving into Denver, I decided to quick-hike the Arsenal.  I’ve written about it on this blog and always enjoy my time there with the deer and prairie dogs and whatnot. 

After a tasty Big City Burrito, I headed downtown.  I fill my quota of city in ATL everyday of the world and being around humans didn’t make the list but there are at least (2) buildings you are obligated, as an architect to visit when you are in the Denver area – Daniel Libeskind’s Denver Art Museum and Michael Graves’ Denver Public Library.  In simple terms I view Libeskind as inaccessible and Graves as a sellout and there is a measure of truth in both of these trite assessments but neither is entirely fair.  They are both rock stars, and I admittedly resist rock star architecture with nearly every fiber of my being but sitting on the street curb between these two buildings I found myself drawn to both. Equally.  The symbiotic tension between the two disparities is predictable but also compelling, if not shocking and overwhelming. 

On one hand the museum grows out of the earth with seemingly random exuberance; its surface fracturing and reaching out and retracting and opening up at the perfect moment to reveal itself.  It’s not confined to its site or even to the rigidity of the street grid within which it resides.  It’s expressive.  It moves and changes with the passing of the sun, it’s dynamic – it’s everything that isn’t static.  It’s the sporadic journey of artistic creation exemplified in built form.  It’s an art museum.

On the other hand the library is exactly what a library should be, but with a wink and a nod in placid defiance.  It’s ordered.  It’s virtually symmetrical.  It’s post-modernism at its finest – a reinterpretation of the known; what the world has become accustomed to understanding as public architecture – but it’s different.  There’s a colonnade but the columns are not of a classical order.  There is a rotunda but there isn’t a dome.  The materials are familiar but the colors are unique – there is actually color (gasp) on this building, virtually a cardinal sin among architects before Graves. But it’s still a library. 

Built more than a decade before the museum expansion, I couldn’t help but wonder how I would have perceived it alone.  How would I have encountered, how would I have experienced either building without the other?  What would my assessment of either be without the other one standing diagonally across the street screaming at the top of its lungs the exact opposite of what the other one was screaming back in response? 

I sat there in the warm afternoon sun attempting to reconcile these thoughts with what I view architecture to be, the principals upon which I’ve inadvertently started to lay the foundation of my career.  I don’t often allow myself to venture into the high-mindedness of what architecture can be – the work that I/we, my firm does is architecture with a very specific purpose.  What I realized is, that so were both of these very dissimilar buildings.  They were both hyper-purposeful, actually the very essence of specific intention.  Is it possible that the nonexclusive club of the other 99% of architects (of which I’m a member) is just as important as the rock stars?  Am I the sensible bridge between the pedestrian and the philosophical?  It was as profound a moment as I’ve had professionally or personally in a long time.  I didn’t appreciate at that moment that the entirety of my time in Colorado would be a study in dichotomous juxtaposition, that my being out west would be defined by the events unfolding back east.  Then my phone rang.

Word from back east was that Maynard was lethargic, not eating and effectively paralyzed in his hind legs.  He was vomiting, listless.  It sounded worse than his other recent episodes and I couldn’t help but fear that we were approaching his end.  I knew that he was in good hands and there was nothing I could do so I just sat there, frozen in time.  I resolved to bury my worry in nature come Monday.  I went to bed with a heavy heart.  I didn’t sleep much.

Sunday night came and went.  Monday morning I was up and out at the crack, determined to disappear into the wilderness and deal.  Pikes Peak was way up on the list and only a thoroughly entertaining hour or so drive to the south, just west of Colorado Springs.  I drove straight to the top with thoughts of hiking around the summit.  The thin air at 14,000+ feet persuaded me to drive right back down said mountain to an altitude more suitable for a forty-one year old hiker (smoker).  This place was incredible though, like nothing I’d ever seen, literally as high as or higher than many of the airy clouds trailing across the crisp sky.

The peak was too populous and I found the solitude I sought around the mid-range of the mountain.  I hiked for what should have been days but was only a couple of hours.  In the magnificence of nature I did what I never do and prayed to God or who or whatever is up there pulling strings to pull my little Maynard through this struggle.  I was wrought with bouts of depression and buoyed by fits of wonderment in rapid succession.  I was seeing an environment, a world I’d never seen but I was racked with guilt for having a good day.  I was relieved that I didn’t have a phone signal and felt like an asshole for not being back east.  The morning sucked.  The morning was amazing.

Garden of the Gods, Manitou Springs and a long drive later I got back to the hotel exhausted to find out that Maynard had been diagnosed as diabetic.  If we chose to extend his life, he would have to be on a prescription diet and I’d have to give him twice daily injections of insulin – this was the best case scenario.  He still might have pancreatitis, liver disease and who knows how any of this affects his heartworm treatment.  I was surprisingly relieved to finally at least know something.  I phoned a friend I thought might give a damn and silently begged for wisdom and insight that they couldn’t possibly have or give.  I went to bed knowing that a decision had to be made and that I didn’t have the balls to make it. 

I woke up Tuesday morning with a sense of dread and despair like I have never known.  I had obligations to the client and I fulfilled them as I always do, but my heart wasn’t in it like it almost always is.  The project turned out better than expectation and I’m proud of the final product.  It’s vernacular.  It’s appropriate.  It’s the client’s image almost perfectly.  Said the primary broker, “It’s the best building of its type in Denver.” Business complete, I excused myself with an incredible desire to get back up into the mountains or anywhere other than right there.

I bolted to the west side of town.

Hiking up and around Genesee Mountain I spotted some deer up ahead on the side.  I thought it would be a good idea to stop and check it out.  I was rewarded with the closest contact I’ve ever experienced in the wild to the wild.  They didn’t seem to care that I was in their house and they just did what they do.  I sat in the tall grass and tried not to freak out.   This was exactly the experience I had hoped for when I came out west. It was about then that I started to understand some things about what was happening back east. 

For the first time in I guess ever, I realized that no matter how much money I spend, I can’t keep Maynard alive longer than he is supposed to be alive.  He’s brought nothing but joy to my life and I’ll always believe I did the same for him.  It’s ridiculous that a little old weenie dog could make me a better man, but he has done exactly that.  If I’m honest, I sat on the side of that hill, watched those deer mill about and had a good cry.  I came to peace with the unavoidable fact that Maynard is near the end of his natural life and if he is ready to go I should let him.  So after much soul searching, I made the decision to not make the decision until I saw him again.  He’d let me know, right? 

That was that.  Back to Atlanta.

Late Wednesday night, I gave Maynard his first insulin shot and he took it like a champ.  I stayed home Thursday to watch him and monitor his glucose levels.  Just after noon there was a big storm and I was lucky enough to witness this little slice of perfection.  

It’s only then that I knew I had made the right decision.  These two are the opposite of each other.  If there is any purity in any dichotomy it’s right here.  If ever the beauty of juxtaposition was more fully revealed, I've never seen it.  Belle is young.  Neurotic.  Full of life.  Maynard is old. Super chill.  Dying.  They can’t get through an afternoon thunderstorm without each other.  They are best friends and they still have a little more time together.        

I just took Maynard out for his evening walk and it sucks to see him stumble around the back lawn where once he ran like the wind.  He certainly isn’t who he used to be but he still has a will to be alive – even barked at my neighbor for no reason.  He hates it when you try to help him out (stubborn to the end) so I let him find his own way. He hasn't stopped fighting so I can't stop being there for him.  I kicked myself all week for being out west and not back east when Maynard needed me the most.  In the end, I realize that it was for the best.  

Without that separation, I don't think I ever would have come to terms with Maynard's eventual mortality.  I've been tense since May when he first got sick.  Now I can finally relax and simply enjoy the rest of his life.  Whatever happens will happen and I'm finally okay with that.