The muse I can no longer deny

There are a million and one reasons why I should not go to France this fall. I need to visit my Grandparents in Charlotte, need to visit my Dad in Alaska, need to have a new roof installed on my old house, need to not spend so much money; given the state of world need not travel to Europe.

Need to and right now are four words I’ve lived my life by. My personal motto for making others happy and living life way up in the nose bleed section of the bleachers. I could go on and on. Reasons why fall out of my brain as quickly as chestnuts hitting the ground from the tree in my front yard.

As these thoughts cloud my mind, as they usually do when I put myself first. I think about what happens to my body when I start talking about architecture and all that it entails. It is though I am elevated into a sacred place where joy is omnipresent. My eyes sparkle like the sun shining on a calm sea. There’s an aura around me that feels like I’m sitting smack dab in the middle of the sun. Where I talk about things I have no clue how I know. But, I know.

I was e-mailing an old friend Sharon a few months back wining about how crappy my life is. I don’t usually throw myself a pity party and invite others to participate. Turning 36 though, makes you question where you are going and what you are doing with your life. How many more years can I spend in my day job? Sharon reminded me of my big fall adventure and how a well rounded (not limited to my hip size) remarkable woman I am. She asked me to close my eyes, breathe deep and visualize where I will be this fall.

By the time you are reading this, I am traveling across the world to come face to face with one of my greatest passions; Architecture. This working vacation is through La Sabraneneque Restoration Projects in a small village in the south of Provence in Saint Victor la Coste located on a hill side nestled between lavender fields and wineries dating back thousands of years. I will be participating in the restoration efforts of a medieval castle. Yes, I am paying to work; for a journey into the sublime. To touch the stones that great stone masters touched, to walk the path of my ancestors, to drink wine made from the souls that Maria Antoinette once sipped. To be apart of something bigger than myself; to be a part of a mystery that lies deep within me, to hear the voices of history, to tell the story that they could not tell.

I seek the architecture of history to discover the locked doors within me; vestibules of buildings and trains, the hatch of an old wooden tugboat, a dead poet’s rotting cottage. Am I the only one that hears the cries of an abandoned building? When I first encountered the architectural model of the Garnier Opera House located in Musee d’Orsay in Paris, I cried for a very long time.

This is the chills shooting up my spine when lighting a candle in Notre Dame. This is hanging out on the wrong side of the tracks in Savannah late at night to visit a railroad depot. This is wiping dust off the windows of the Farmers and Exchange Bank in Charleston just to get a mere glimpse of the interior. This explains why my favorite part of the Louvre is in the medieval moats. This is what happens to me when I allow myself to be vulnerable to the experience. A transformation occurs deep down at my cellular level; I feel the architects, I feel the builders. I feel the energy of the material, I feel the people that were once there. I fall in love over and over again with the built world. This love fills me up and pushes me forward.

This inspires me to live a creative life; to courageously grab the pen and write for no one else but myself, architecture inspires me to write when I forget the words, when holding a pencil is as foreign as hearing my name called out in a crowd in Paris, when I refuse to turn on the computer, when the dullness of my day job starts to take over my thoughts, when I forget what being in love means. This is why I gravitate towards architects, designers, and builders. It explains why the men I have loved and continue to love are just that. It is why my dearest friends in the world build, design, and create not for a living, but for a LIFE. Through their collective creative expression, they in essence build me up, one word at a time.

The built world and all that it entails is my muse. And that is what inspires me.