The Process of the Attainable

No much about getting to have Grape Hill has been easy. All the exhausted drives from Seattle. Fighting winds and rain to build. Getting stuck in ankle deep mud. Decisions decisions. We built a house from industrial materials and made our kitchen island and all of our moldings from cherry-faced plywood.

Nobody can get this, THIS, by writing a check. Oh, you can get something spectacular, no doubt, but not Grape Hill. This is a process, a not terribly expensive achievement that requires time and dedication, passion and the capacity to roll with frustrations and limitations. Producing something that conveys the impression that this is unattainable, with an alienating under-current that says "You can visit, but this is beyond you";that under-current is commonplace. What we wanted to convey is an invitation to other that says "enjoy yourselves and may you do in your life the things that really turn you on".

We didn't seek perfection and we certainly did not achieve perfection. Perfection is never going to be had in any human endeavor; just thinking that we know what constitutes perfection means we are either mimicking fools or egoistic fools, and neither of these types of fools laughs nearly enough.

So if being here feels comfortable and special without feeling especially elite, I'd like to invite everyone to rethink what constitutes "elite"? In Bhutan they have a government ministry of happiness, the mandate of which is to support and enhance the joy within the population. Places that invite deep breathing and wandering skipping childlike richness...these are places built upon impressions and not upon impressing. I reckon that is about it.

Took me a lot of journeying to get back to being able to thoroughly love watching the clouds pass by. Maybe I am finally getting to the point where we can open those bottles of wine that we have never dared to drink. I don't ever want a painting so valuable that I cannot feel comfortable to hang it up where I can see it and I don't ever again want to buy a bottle of wine that I take so damned seriously that I cannot justify drinking it up.

None of that stuff will ever be as good as what those glorious wind-surfing dudes are enjoying every single day they get out on the river. That sort of richness can't be had by writing a check.