Solstice...

My son and I put up the tree last night, Vince Guaraldi heralding angels in the background; the solstice and full moon- an amazing confluence made even more magical by a full lunar eclipse. Longest night of the year and the brightest; clear and brilliant view of this rare alignment. A remarkable end to a challenging but…marvelous…year.

They all are, really- if we pay attention. But this one has been particularly special for me for some strange reason. Honestly? If I pull out my “spreadsheet” nothing “grand” happened; my life has been blessed with a few bumps, all negotiable. But those small shifts seem to have brought me to a very different place.

I’ve been “blogging” my way through this recession with the mantra that money is not so important. And I stand by that. We’ve all learned to do with less, to be more thoughtful in our decisions and our purchases and focus on things in life that resonate, that last, that make it matter.

I was at my usual semester’s end architectural juries this week, and one of the words that kept coming up regarding decision-making was “determination”. Great word- simple, cogent. Apt for the design process. Make a commitment, a choice and run with it- whether it seems reasonable or not. Most great ideas seemed a bit sketchy at the onset, didn’t they?

One has to be a little crazy- and a risk taker- to work in a creative field, design or architecture for certain. In the best of economies we do not get rich, and are much blown by economic vagaries. And sitting there last night with my co-creative types- some less employed than myself, others only slightly more- I’m struck by a common thread that continues to weave through our warped minds. We are passionate, single minded and appreciative; we believe that spaces impact how people live in a fundamental way, and we have genuine concern for the process of building. That seems unchanged even when our most exciting recent project was a utility garage. Every one of us there still cares about the process. And that gives me great hope.

Yes, well. There is that silly little nagging and annoying concern about business development. Someone once said, “if you build it they will come”. Hah. I haven’t exactly sat on my hands this year, but there was scant building being done. So? I focused elsewhere and built in other regards. And as we approach the end of 2010 and go into the next decade (really? another already?) I do believe that we are coming through this recession. Changed, yes. And probably for the better. We will prevail. We always do.

A new year approaches, and as it does I consider what I want the coming year to bring. This isn’t about “resolutions”, which always seem to be about fixing something we perceive as negative in ourselves. This is a clear intent about what I want to do, to manifest, to create this year. I’ve found that it actually works- if one lets go of the past and the future and focuses on the possible, all else changes.

So. I am thinking about my “intent” for the coming year. This year was about expanding my little circle- in business and in life, and it actually, remarkably, worked. Healing broken wings, mending, patching, hanging on- and building in other directions. I think I’ll just keep the goals simple and see what unfolds in 2011. Yes, this year is all about that: unfolding. Origami style. Let’s see what can happen if we let life just… be.

To all my friends; far, wide and close by- much love, a merry Christmas, and joy and abundance in the coming year…

and to all, a good night…

Focus…

It’s a couple of months since I’ve posted, and here we all are, my friends; another full circle on the calendar, the holidays with us yet again. This is always, always my very favorite time of year- it’s magic, and if there’s a lack of that in your universe, just call me. There’s always room for another plate at the table, and plenty for us all.

Frankly, magic was not much on my mind the last few months and so it’s reappearance is quite welcome. I’ve been “inside” for a bit- working through the complexities of life, love and necessity, which made more room for work than inspiration. The good news is that all of the pragmatic processes of the past year are coming to fruition quite nicely, and I think 2010 will be a good vintage: Life is sweet, those nearest and dearest intact and blooming. Fruition and harvest with great bounty, as always anticipated but not always managed. And a little real magic: I am standing on my head once again, through the real miracle of modern technology. Hip healed, life moving on. So. Maybe time for the intangible again…?

I was hunkered down with tasks at hand when a bit of “design esoterica” made me look up, in the form of a blog post by an architect whose many, many talents I highly respect. He was questioning: In the midst of the massive devastation to the design community from the present economic conditions, from whence comes “inspiration”? Are we, have we, in our quest for creativity, focused on all the wrong things? Is design school thinking and teaching, as presently structured, relevant?

Hah- I thought. Leave it to architects to second guess their own creative impetus. I kind of felt like telling him to go size a beam, please. The rest of us have such a firm grip on confidence in this economy, right? But my less flippant response: if school isn’t the place for dreams, then what is? If we can't stretch the sense of the possible there, when will we? Soon enough we deal with the pragmatism of everyday work- and life. We need the dreams to sustain us when our days are filled with tasks at hand, when our lives and careers hit those inevitable, death defying bumps in the road.

There are times of inspiration and others for perspiration. We "creative types" know that better than most, but here it is: in these times we need to (and do) pull the proverbial hood up, hunker down and get the work done. That is the grownup way to deal, and must be. But when your work is based in creative thinking, and one can’t count on inspiration to lead the way through difficult times, what exactly do we do to get the job done? Because our work, when we have it, is grounded not only in pragmatism but in some semblance of creative vision.

Well, here it is: the answer from the gods at large, a proverbial “Fountain of Creative Youth”: Stop focusing on it. Stop thinking about what isn’t, what doesn’t work, what’s broken or stuck; and build on what is, what does work, what is fluid and whole. Creativity, and life, will come full circle in ways most unexpected. Or so it seems; I’ll let you know next year…

Simple, yes? I’ll hold to that thought and squeeze it. Cause next week that elusive thing called clarity will have slid/ slipped away. Yet again. And I’ll be back in the conundrum of life. But hopefully I'll be following that moment of…inspiration...to something new.

Today, for now, let me just say: I’ve stopped thinking about what doesn’t work and turned my attention to what does. I’m taking care of business and not worrying about what I can’t control, or what doesn’t come to me. And after more than half a century of massive confusion about what is or isn’t important, what I should or shouldn’t be doing, it’s been that incredibly simple. Do the work, the rest will follow.

For the last couple of months my attention has been on things tangible and fundamental- making my leg work and paying bills have had star billing in the show of life. The rest seems to be taking care of itself. Thank you, Universe.

Inspiration is a slippery thing. Seems if you try to follow it, it will lead you down blind alleys and through twists and turns that seem insurmountable. But if you just do the work, it all does come together. Maybe not in ways you expected. Maybe even better.

Right now, I can’t do many of the things that worked for me in the past. But this is the time to push past the things that don’t work with the impetus of the things that do. And inspiration is coming from turning my head slightly. It’s just a matter of focus.

Of course, new reading glasses help.

To all my friends: a most magical Thanksgiving. Call me if you’re hungry, for magic or the more mundane… dinner’s at three.

Bridges…

Or, in the words of Dinah Washington:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmBxVfQTuvI

On September 8 my life changed completely. I knew it would, one way or another.

So, in the month preceding it, I prepared- and I played. I went inside, drew my thoughts together, went into “training”. I decided that preparation was what would make this life-changing event as successful as possible. After years of avoidance, I was getting a new hip. I knew it would be the last time I’d be independently mobile for some time, and decided that in preparation for the inevitable– and presumably very temporary- detachment, I would gather all the best of my world- people, places and things- to take with me into the process of regeneration that was about to begin.

Like my favorite children’s book, “Fredrick the Mouse”, I gathered color and beauty to me for my cave. I spent floating steamy August afternoons sitting on the beach soaking in light and air, flew a kite in Pt. Pleasant crosswinds, ate waffles and ice cream on the boardwalk, jumped through and over waves surprisingly free of jellyfish, dug my toes into the sand and turned my face to the sun. Awesome. Sultry evenings eating crab and mussels with sticky fingers; mojitos and meandering conversations with good friends.

On Labor Day, two days before my surgery, I drove into a deserted NYC for the day. Parked by Central Park, went to MoMA and visited old friends- Cezanne, Brancusi, Miro, Pollack, Motherwell, Diebenkorn and- my personal favorite- Matisse. (see the show- it’s lovely). I went into the garden, a serene space gently walled from the intense frenzy of the city and the museum itself. The fountain is my favorite- a rectangular reflecting pool bridged by a simple slab of white marble. I stood in the middle of the bridge and threw a coin into the water. "A Wish for Wings that Work."

In a last inspired act of self-kindness (and to my daughter’s great amusement), I filled my IPod shuffle with “The Sounds of Anesthesia”- music to inspire, elevate, dream and make me smile through the process- “Spaced Out”, Comfortably Numb”, “Dreaming Tree”…”I Will”. Hah, of course I will. Was there ever a question?

We live in a society where the value of things intangible is questioned. I’ve run into that repeatedly in my life from those who doubt the possibility of building a life doing things that bring pleasure and beauty- art, music, words. My own family, marvelous and grounded pragmatists that they are, have always looked at me a bit askance as the “odd duck” in a pond of productive beavers. Go do something practical. So I did. All practical- including the gathering of light and laughter. Most important for healing.

Certainly, I worked too- put all ducks in rows so that the process would be as smooth as possible and my electric would still be on. Saw clients, sent emails, cleaned house, set up, worked out extra hard. Because, quite frankly, I had no idea what would be on the other side of the bridge… and If I stopped to think about it, I was pretty scared. This was major surgery, after all- and things go wrong all the time.

Fear is a terrible thing- it pushes us to avoid taking the steps in our lives that will bring us to the place we most want to go. Truth is, what we avoid and flinch over settles into the joints; we become more and more inhibited by the restrictions we’ve created- by the narrow range of movement in our lives, whether they be physical or otherwise.

The stamina to take risks; to forge through and across the bridges of life takes resources- psychic Sherpas so to speak to put oneself at the end of the proverbial bungee cord.

My new leg and I are fast becoming best friends. I find myself amazingly, miraculously stronger every day. Partly preparation, partly luck and good genes, and very much the skill and care of the talented people who took apart my broken wing and put it back together. It took a team of dreamers (the inventors of my miracle hip socket) and pragmatists (the PT who kicked my terrified ass into moving) to get me here. And, most critical, the supportive cushion of loving people that I am so very fortunate to have around me. And I won’t discount the power of Pink Floyd.

Of course, all this great insight could be the result of the excellent cocktail of drugs I was blessed to ingest this last week. Don’t think so, this is the result of a year of mindful preparation- designing my life.

In a cool twist, I have new clients who are doing a major renovation and are very focused on disability design- something that all of us Aging Boomers need to keep at the front of our minds, whether for loved ones or our own eventual falls and failings. I am now familiar first-hand with what it means to get to the bathroom at 2 AM when your legs don’t work- and am a much better designer for the experience. Events in our lives aren’t discrete- they interweave, interconnect, inform and reverberate in and through each other- and that’s a good thing.

From the other side of the bridge? I do believe that wish will come true…

A couple of children’s books that inspire me still:

A Wish for Wings That Work: An Opus Christmas Story; Berkeley Breathed

Frederick the Mouse; Leo Leonni

First Harvest…

It’s a year to the day since I posted my first words on the internet with (just a little) trepidation, wondering what could I possibly have to say that anyone would read (really?) My words were born from the recession; from a moment when I- and all around me- were facing professional freefall at a time in our lives when we were hoping to finally, finally take a deep breath and reap a bit of the reward for all those years of building- both the literal and metaphorical. As I reflect back on this year I am amazed (not for the first time) at how much my little world has been altered by this experience- not only the financial compression, but the verbal expansion. Sharing my thoughts has fostered connections I never expected, with great solace in the (seemingly trite) truth that we’re all in this together; that it’s not so important what we have or where we’re going as it is that we get there together. And how fundamentally important our connections to each other remain- roots and branches.

My first blog started with the premise of abundance- that in the midst of this very lean time we actually have much. Pretty simple, fairly direct. And a call for us all to be conscious of our choices, of what endures- the things that last, the effort, energy and focus to continue when there’s little clarity about what the future holds. To look at what is real and what is fleeting in importance. The foundations upon which we build this time will be stronger for this experience.

Summer’s end is always a bit poignant and wistful for me- my garden that held such promise just a few months ago is now looking a bit tired, and I lose momentum. Seems natural, actually- hard to keep that energy going in 90 degree heat. This year’s garden is a great metaphor for our financial world at large- the harvest that seemed so promising a month ago was decimated by deer just as it came to fruit, and I am left with my basil. Much, much basil. A bounty of basil. A plethora of pesto for this winter? No balance, perhaps but it’s a start……..

My richest harvest this year has been from the seeds of my words- a column, new clients and wonderful friendships that have begun to bloom in this garden of shared experience are tangible and remarkable reflections of what can grow out of struggle and challenge- sprouts in the soil after the forest fire.

Buddhist teachings speak of learning to accept and ride the waves of life: Maybe, maybe not. Apparent struggle is usually about rebirth in the cycle of life, and what appears to be tragedy can in truth be blessing. Maybe. Maybe not.

To a rich and fruitful harvest at the center for us all……in this coming year and beyond.

Targeting Frugality…

Interesting note: for a couple of days last week the most emailed article in the New York Times was entitled: “Shoppers on a Diet Tame the Urge to Buy”. Hmmm. Intriguing, I thought, given that my business is all about consuming on a large scale.

Or is it? What, pray tell, is design?

More than any other year in my memory, this one has given me lots of time and impetus to think about that- seems like assessment is the perfect way to ride the wave of recession. I started where I always like to start:

The Dictionary:

design:

a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent

b. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect

c. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.

OK, I hand selected- there are oodles of definitions for “design” in multitudinous online dictionaries, and I could get deeply involved in a semantic debate about the meanings. But not one of them involves “Stuff”. Solutions, Problem Solving, Creativity, Conception. Not Accumulation. And not Consumption.

The Times article was prompted by a very interesting website: http://sixitemsorless.com/ , which involved a challenge to pare down one’s wardrobe to- surprise- six items or less. A quick read of the website says it is not a statement about consumerism, and interestingly, that it has no “agenda”, just putting it out there and looking to see what happens.

My thought? A sign of the times.

I was in Target this week and caught myself doing a very interesting thing- one which a Facebook friend recently commented on, most notably regarding Harmon Stores. I went in for a couple basic necessities- light bulbs, detergent, coffee filters. I did what I always do- took a shopping cart. Why? Because clearly in any given trip to Target I will be mesmerized and need a cart. I know myself in Target, and Target knows me well- the light bulbs are buried in the back corner furthest from the entrance; the detergent is caddy corner to that on the opposite end, And in between? Mountains and mountains of colorful, lively, enticing, sometimes useful- but largely superfluous……stuff.

Sure enough, I stood at the front of the store preparing to check out with at least three extra things in my cart. I chuckled and thought about the whole concept of “Six items or Less”. What if I apply that principle to my life? To design? Paring down in life and in art, myself and my work? I put back the extra stuff and bought the very things I went in for (total:4). Whew. Pennies saved? Yes, maybe- but it’s a start.

And this is a sign of the times, no? When our credit is tight and our jobs at risk, a clear sense of what we need can be applied to all aspects of our lives, from Target to travel. We buy too much, throw away too much and use too much stuff. Defining what we want and how to get it seems all the more important when there’s no room for waste.

I recently designed a home theater for clients- hardly the model project for frugality. But, in truth, it would have been easy to do more, buy more, spend more- and in other times we probably would not have watched the meter so closely. These clients are excellent “shoppers” and hate to waste money, and I am perfectly paired with that philosophy- particularly these days. So let’s bring on the ideas, not the stuff. Let’s work towards Applied Frugality: using materials, thoughts, time- and life in general- wisely and with creativity.

As I come full circle in my first blog year, I’m thinking that this recession is not going to end any time soon, and instead of whining like a teenager who lost my allowance, it’s time to remember the wisdom of my parents who grew up and hit adulthood in that earlier Magnitude 10 “Recession”. Choose well and have less- it will mean more.

For the Times article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/fashion/22SIXERS.html

and for its inceptor:

http://sixitemsorless.com/

Day Lilies…

I’ve been spending a lot of time (well, relatively speaking) in my garden the last couple of weeks. June is good for that- everything looks and feels fresh, and the colors are at their most vibrant. The rabbits and deer haven’t yet decimated my hopes (this year I planted enough for us to share, I hope). Not unlike a newly framed house before the sheathing goes up, anything seems possible. I spent a lot of time at the local nurseries, browsing, wandering…and cautiously, frugally choosing a few new perennials to flesh out my little beds. It’s a haphazard looking garden, no order to it- herbs, flowers and food commingle, looking for just the right light. Here I find myself being purely responsive, shifting bits and pieces from one spot to another, playing shapes and colors off of each other, no particular pattern or order- not unlike the way I paint. Here I can let go of the planning, the systems, the structure and organization that is so necessary in my design work. Here I can just watch stuff grow.

But the designer is never far from the surface, no matter how much I’d like to be loose. So I keep moving things and I’m damned if I can figure it out. Plants are not so cooperative; they have a mind of their own. For all my meddling, I am constantly- and happily- surprised; what I thought would be spectacular never quite gets there and something else I entirely missed is amazing.

It’s very humbling digging in the dirt. There are successes for certain, but mostly things seem to grow, take root and bloom at their own pace and in their own time- not unlike my children. And perhaps that’s the best of life, and the lesson for me is to be less of a designer and just be a facilitator, sit back and smell the roses for real.

Right now I have this spectacular day lily- coral and pink; deeply, extravagantly beautiful, with a dozen or so buds to make anticipation of its continuing bloom for the next few weeks enough to draw me, coffee mug in hand, to my yard every morning. It’s a lovely, transient thing; backed by an abounding bloom of lavender, its transience perhaps makes it all the more poignant, a little sad and special- a gift to cherish in the moment. Gardens are like that.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my own approach to design, and through that frame to the bigger picture of life and love at large. The challenges of these past two years have changed me like no others in my life, and I feel I am coming full circle- as hopefully we all are- through the experience of planting seedlings in shallow soil; some take, some don’t, some are thorny, some add color. I’ve done a fair amount of weeding as well, but find that many of the weeds are actually flowers themselves. Trite? Maybe. But axioms are rooted in truth, are they not?

My conclusion? I get to play, but the garden isn’t really mine- it has a life all its own. But for sure in the digging, I've found my own roots...

Chutzpah…

I’m not normally a big TV watcher, but lately that’s shifted a bit and I’m finding some pretty cool stuff. Not a big fan of “reality”, TV or otherwise; nor do sitcoms or cop shows make the cut. I generally head for the documentary channels first, and last week chance brought me to a terrific documentary about the George Washington Bridge.

For some reason I’ve been thinking about the GWB a lot lately. I’ve lived in the circumference of NYC my entire life and have always loved that bridge. One of my very first memories is driving south on the Henry Hudson Pkwy and my Aunt Norma telling me to wave to George and Martha living up there, at the very top of the east tower (if you squint just right you will see them, of course). I would look very hard for them and wave with just a little skepticism. Now I cross it weekly to see my own granddaughters who live five minutes away in Harlem (upper deck preferably, I have my system in place). I’ve traveled over the GWB probably fifty times a year over half a century, been tortured in extraterrestrial traffic jams, bemoaned a forgotten Yankee game and marveled at the view in both directions. I‘ve admired its beauty as an object- how it spans the river; the contrast between the urban New York side and the pastoral Palisades in New Jersey. I’m designer enough to get excited by how the odd asymmetry in its connection to the earth on each side is a physical manifestation of that dichotomy. But I took it for granted, as we do so many of the incredible man-designed, man-built monoliths among us in this place where building has always been scaled for giants.

Watching the history of its construction, I was more and more amazed by the brilliance, prescience and pure chutzpah of those who built this bridge. To create a structure capable of carrying millions of pounds of weight in shifting and complex conditions every day for 70 years; to see future and build in capacity for expansion to double the volume, to do so in the age of slide rules, and to make it something so incredibly beautiful takes nothing less than New York scale balls. And a New York story it is.

Othmar Ammann, an émigré from Switzerland and a Port Authority employee, was the engineer responsible for the GWB and many others of note in our amazing region- the Verrazano, the Bayonne and the Whitestone are also credited to him. Clearly he was a man who was inspired beyond the ken of the rest of us normal and average thinkers. In true New York fashion, the back story of power brokering and posturing is an interesting one, but what struck me in this story was that- unlike the “Robert Moses” of the world, or the “Donald Trumps”- until now I have never heard his name. A quiet and reserved man with remarkable vision, a biographer described him as someone who intuitively understood and….felt…how bridge structures function.

It’s that “feeling” thing that stopped me. Because that’s exactly the key, isn’t it? When experience intersects with instinct to overrule “good judgment”, when we know in our gut what is right- despite all appearances to the contrary, despite all arguments against it. When we see the tree- clearly- within the forest…and have the confidence to know it’s the tree. When we build the bridge that by all accounts is foolish…

In design- as in life- there is intuition. Some of us have it for structural or spatial decisions, others for business or science. Malcolm Gladwell wrote most eloquently about the root of intuition in “Blink”- that gut feeling we follow when we know a truth from somewhere in our center despite the odds against it. One of those interviewed in the program on Ammann pointed out that others have followed his logic and his formulas only to find failure. It’s like watching a great athlete or performer- there is that extra modicum of “mojo” that takes it beyond the ordinary, and you know it when you see it.

1931 was a challenging year- not unlike what we are going through right now; the financial collapse three years earlier had left tremendous insecurity and financial suffering in its wake. Interestingly, both the George Washington Bridge AND the Empire State building were completed that year. And even more interesting? Both of them were completed on time and under budget.

Point of contrast? In 1940 “Galloping Gertie” (so christened by construction workers) was born across the Tacoma Narrows in Washington. She lasted four months before one of the most spectacular bridge failures in history; it took 10 years to rebuild and a mere 40 for her capacity to be overstrained, requiring another parallel bridge to be built.

So? here’s my thought about all of this. Tough times bring creative solutions and less room for either waste or foolishness; financial leanness means there is little margin for error and much need for that creativity, and these times give birth to great ideas that last. It’s the chutzpah to channel resources, the mojo to see past the present struggle and the moxie to take the risk that will build a better bridge.

Gotta love New Yawk.

For a great clip of the Tacoma bridge collapse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs

Headstands…

This is without a doubt my favorite time of year. As spring’s defrost button melts light and earth, and color returns to outdoors blasting lime green, soft pink and vibrant forsythia yellow, I shrug off blankets, both literal and figurative. I used to love winter- still do for a bit, but its charms wear thin by about December these days, and for the first time I actually “get” the concept of the “snowbirds.” (oh dear…do I see early bird specials in Ft Lauderdale looming in my future??) I welcome this time of open windows and chilly nights, somewhere between frost of winter and promise of summer. My heat still kicks on occasionally, but that’s just fine- the best is yet to come. There is something magical in that smell of wet earth and possibility (once it wasn’t coming from my basement) and my brain begins to thaw as I come full circle with the cycle of the seasons.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of creativity and the challenges we come up against when we hit road blocks in life or work. I was thinking, actually of the whole concept of “road blocks”. Although I’ve been writing, my blog’s been at a standstill for the last couple of months while I tended to other business, much of which was pretty uninspiring- and uninspired. So to “jumpstart” my sense of the possible, I escaped to the Catskills for a remarkable opportunity to take a deep breath, remove myself from “figuring everything out”, and just spend a few days breathing and listening. No decisions, no computer or phone, no work, no sump pumps or problems. Just listening….and breathing- with some pretty inspiring people. I recommend this kind of moment to all- a break in the action.

I hate road blocks. I will howl against them, dig at them and crowbar them, pick at them and relentlessly focus on them when up against them. This time I decided to let my roadblock sit there, not try to get around it or climb over it; just lean against it like an old friend, pop open an imaginary beer, raise my eyes to the sun, wait and see what happened next. For a change, I figured I’d shut up and listen. Hah. Not a strength of mine…

What I began to realize in this past year is that the people who get where they want to go don’t perceive road blocks in front of them. I, on the other hand, see them like a steeplechase course in which I’m a little pony surrounded by Appaloosas. Those damned blocks which loom in my life like ten foot brick walls are somewhere in their peripheral vision, so life takes them where they want to go despite all the obstacles and problems. They just head in that direction.

One of my roommates in the Catskills was a woman whose story crystallized that thought for me. Beautiful both inside and out, she grew up on a kibbutz in Israel and as a young woman was in NYC for a visit. While there, for no apparent reason, she read the “Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” and at the end knew exactly what she needed to do next in her life. She investigated college programs, booked a flight to Colorado, showed up at an admissions office mid-summer with no application, no visa and no money for tuition, and told them she planned to go there in September. She did, and spent the next five years studying with the some of the “best and the brightest” in the field of her dreams.

Hmmm. How to bottle a little of that sauce, I wonder?

What seems to happen to me when the blocks show up is that confidence drains through this little passage at the base of my neck-drip, drip, I can feel it slipping away until every idea I have looks shallow, dull or just plain boring, only to be discarded. So I’ve learned to save those potential gems in a growing file of rough cut diamonds just waiting for the day when perspective returns and my wit and work are remarried.

In the meantime, I’m learning to live with that proverbial elephant- not ignoring it, just letting it rest comfortably with my feet on its trunk. I figure we’re old friends now and it’s much harder to move an elephant than to hug it.

Life transformative moments seem to happen to other people- those brilliant moments of incandescent inspiration that drive them to purposeful exploration. I keep waiting for that to happen, like listening for an echo in a vacuum. While I wait, instead of wasting time I do some stuff like stand on my head and write a blog. And maybe for most of us that’s what life consists of- not that radiant explosion, but just doing the work we love and seeing where it takes us.

Of course I did buy a copy of the “Tibetan Book on Living and Dying.” Hell, who knows? I figure if I spend enough time inverted I'll figure it all out… not unlike a quote I found recently: “overnight success in 30 years.”

What I Learned In Kindergarten…

With much chagrin and a sense of the absurd I read an article in the NY Times about test preparation programs for entry to kindergarten. Kindergarten. There are waiting lists for these programs in NYC. I dashed off an email to my daughter warning her to, quick, get my two year old granddaughter on the waiting list NOW, lest she miss her window for Harvard! Her response? She’s already having trouble finding her a pre-school for next year, should have started looking before Julia was born. No kidding. Not long ago I had a three year old in my office with her own laptop- great, right? Except she was doing homework. Seriously, what are we thinking? Makes me long for another Maria Montessori...

We’d all like to hearken back to the “good old days” when “children had a childhood.” But the reality is, that’s never been the case. Parents have put pressure on their kids to perform for as long as there have been parents and kids. The good news is that whatever we do, however hard we press, our kids will grow up with their own way of thinking, and that is fortunate. It’s the engine that drives our creativity, that makes for Cooper Hewitt award winners and inspires the rest of us to keep trying.

But the question is, are we fostering that creativity when we’re so focused on quantifying a three year old’s “success”? How far do we push and how young is too young to put them on the treadmill? What happened to play? Are flashcards and math drills really more effective than Play Dough for preschool? And if they are, so what? What’s the cost?

If you have lots of money and a kid who can’t seem to walk that narrow line, you can send them to a private school that fosters a more creative approach to learning (what a subversive concept- learning should be fun!) Some look at these “alternative” schools dismissively, concerned that their unconventional approach is more circuitous and less quantifiable. True, but, oh how I envied their approach as a child, when trying to make my left brain meet my right.

I grew up in Brooklyn, in a neighborhood of brownstones and artists. I was lucky for that unique experience, although I had no idea at the time. My parents- educated, loving and positive- sent me off to a very good Catholic school, blue jumper and all, giving me the best of tools to set me on my path. Alas, I wandered afar- right down the street from our house to a brownstone that housed the Woodward School. In its massive windows hung clotheslines; attached to those clotheslines were enormous sheets of newsprint with an ever changing display of bold, messy paintings hanging like flags of freedom. I walked by those windows every day, yearning, as I struggled to stay inside crisp looseleaf lines. It took many frustrating years until I finally found my voice and figured out how to use it. Those paintings in the window inspired my search- that and the crazy artists roaming that neighborhood, canvases like kites.

Recently I was a panel member for an architectural jury at which two students ended up in tears, partly because of my critique. I felt terrible, and wondered what I said or did to create that much stress. What I perceived as great dialogue, and questions intended to be encouraging, left them feeling overwhelmed and pressured. In truth, their presentations were two of the most intriguing solutions to a challenging project, and two that most engaged the entire group. Afterwards I spoke with them, explaining that they did a great job- they grabbed our attention and made us think twice, much better than the “perfect” solution. And I thought back to my own student days, the power that critical commentary can have in our lives; how withering it can be, or how empowering. Are we teaching our children to think for themselves, or to just give us back the “right” answers?

Positive dialogue about ideas starts when a two year old first picks up a crayon, and teaching a child to find her own voice is critical to learning, to confidence in challenging perceptions, and to creative pursuit in our lives, wherever that may take us. What we stand to miss is that power of "art" is not in the product, but in taking the risk to put forth something different, though-provoking and perhaps unresolved. The most eloquent projects are often the incomplete or imperfect. They're the balls we can bounce around, mull over, fill in, respond to... imagine.

We live in a society that measures everything. We wear monitors when we exercise, carefully quantify our learning, our fitness, our height and weight and breadth and depth. All those Weights and Measures are of value, necessary systems that give structure to our lives. If we didn’t measure, we’d have no means to build a building, know a healthy heart rate, check cholesterol levels, and evaluate who should get into Harvard. But even in science, there’s art in interpretation, and without creative thinking, without critical analysis, without interaction, intuition and instinct we often misdiagnose.

For years we’ve bemoaned the effects of technology and pressure on our children. Some will take to it, others won’t. Some types of creativity are fostered within the lines, others are not. And we can worry about what they learn and what they don’t, but growth and learning happen in their own pace and time, and aren’t limited to the years before the age of 21. Thank God, or I’d still be SOL.

Towards Singularity…

Curious about the title, what’s up and where we’re headed in design, I made a trip to the Cooper Hewitt Museum in NY for an exhibit called “Design USA: Contemporary Innovation”; a retrospective honoring their design award-winners of the last 10 years. It was quite an experience, and I’m still mulling over the incredible collection of ideas, running the gamut from search engines to sneakers, physicists to plastics. Oh, foolish boy, if Benjamin Braddock only knew…

The categories themselves were intriguing: Craft, Experience, Technology, Materials, Method and Design Mind. Recognition that “design” is a very broad term, “space” is more than what’s between four walls, and “innovation” affects everything.

Of course, architects and designers were recognized, especially for solutions to meet changing spatial and environmental demands. There were imaginative “brownsite” redevelopments, most notably the High Line in Manhattan, and much emphasis on prefab technology, green design and sustainability. But equally lauded were those who think “outside the box” across the board. Nike has conquered sluggish feet with shoes weighed in grams; Aveda, a makeup manufacturer, was awarded for creativity in environmentally sound product and packaging as well as their third world economic contributions. The New York Times graphics department was noted for their interactive media applications- Sunday morning sections may soon go the way of milk delivery. Patagonia’s recycled plastic “fleece” has saved millions of sheep from the indignity of shaving, turning half liters into hoodies. The meeting of mind and material has made for innovations that are changing what and how we produce, and I started to think of how these innovations are shifting our concept and use of space.

Most intriguing were the “interaction” designers who have had such profound impact on all our lives, even for those of us whose only contact with technology is the touch screen at the ATM. Their connections between the digital and the physical realm, ubiquitous in those elegant IPhone applications, are radically changing our means of communication. Being of an earlier generation and far from technologically proficient, I only have the vaguest understanding of how this all works. But the good news is I don’t have to- someone very smart from MIT has my back. I just have to show up and use it.

Little mention in this exhibit of “space” as we think of it, but technological innovation is profoundly impacting how we live, and how our businesses and homes will respond to it. Yes, they are dealing with space as well- abstract space tied more tightly to time and less sensitive to place than we’re used to, but quite pertinent to any discussion of how we live. It’s “space” we didn’t really consider as little as ten years ago, and it’s changing how our physical space functions as well.

I think of my own connectivity; I am “linkedin”, “twittered”, “emailed” “facebooked” “googled”, and that’s before I pick up the phone. Not so long ago, I lost my daughter on a ski vacation and was terrified- now I could call her from the top of that mountain, assuming that she’d answer. I take a picture and email it while finding a restaurant on 145^th Street. All this communication can be intrusive, but it’s a powerful tool for connection, for building business and for exploring ideas. I can work from just about anywhere, talk just about any time- and there’s something quite freeing in that.

I was pushed headlong into my own technological Waterloo about four years ago when working on a project in Georgia. Time sensitivity and construction constraints forced me to make a leap I had for many years resisted- from hand drafting to CAD. The poor guys I worked with can attest that they pushed an 800 lb gorilla over a 10 foot wall- I had to change my entire way of thinking about space and form. Result? Four years later I no longer own a drafting table, having abandoned it for my little Mac Powerbook, and that roll of yellow trace has become wrapping paper. Many a detail was drafted on a Continental tray table and emailed from the arrival gate. The transition changed not only how I design but how and where I work. Coupled with the vast internet library a click away, my “office” has been downsized to any small surface and a chair; add my IPhone, it’s behind the wheel of my car (yes, I know). All else is extraneous clutter that I just can’t seem to help.

Demarcations are shifting and with them the spaces we inhabit. We work nationally and globally in our slippers on the coffee table. And how we design needs to respond to these changes- offices morph, organizing systems adapt, home and play and work intersect in ways we didn’t imagine, all changing the function of our spaces, how we fill them and with that, fundamentally, how we live our lives.

This shift to instant information and immediate response makes me wonder how long before we approach that hypothetical “singularity” where mind and machine finally merge? Doesn’t seem so far-fetched now, we’re only one small step into this world of technology. A generation ago my mother spent her Saturday mornings cleaning kerosene lanterns and went to church with heated bricks under her feet. I stand on a subway platform and plan a vacation, make a bank transfer and download a CD in seconds. And that’s me- what of the three year old recently in my office with her “Princess” laptop? For her it’s already there.

It’s all good, just different. Changing with the times, right? Something to be said for continued adaptation…keeps me young, at least at heart.