we are craftsmen

The truth is that we’re drowning in busywork, nonproductive work, everything from “creative” banking and insurance bureaucracies to the pointless shuffling of data and the manufacturing of products designed to be obsolescent almost immediately–and I would argue that a great deal of what we’re doing should just stop. Interestingly, people of all sorts are beginning to reconnect to skills and sensibilities that were bulldozed in the frenzy of “development” that remade our world during the past two generations. Those orchards and fields that once covered the lands of the peninsula, the East Bay, and Silicon Valley are haunting us now, as we seek to relocalize our food sources and our economy more generally. People are relearning how to reuse things, how to fix broken items, and even how to make new things from the scraps of industrial waste. The world shaped by capitalist modernization is not good for human life and is certainly rough on the health of the planet. The hollowing out of communities whose lives were once anchored in the old Produce Market area or who shared life along the vibrant Fillmore blues corridor is precisely what people are trying to overcome. 

– Rebecca Solnit, Infinite City

dear california

would you love me as i leave?

In Particular

I think when you wake up to the sound of hot-air balloons right outside your window, you just know. When the Rocky Mountains are beaming for you on your drive to work, and lightning storms start around 3 pm every day, and the majority of the population is out playing in the wilderness…you just know that this place is special. But of all the characteristics which make Colorado a gem, the sunsets are the most glorious part. Every night I wait for them like a child waiting for fireworks. Better than any show on TV, better than any performance I’ve seen live, they just take your breath away. Every night I wait for them.

look again.

i think i will forever be obsessed with these two.

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it’s official.

Spring break has begun.

With my last and only final on yesterday for “Mechanical and Electrical Equipment for Buildings” (so interesting right?), spring has officially hit the ground running.

Got a bit of hiking and running in, two trips to the arboretum on campus, two trips to the beach (one for star-gazing and the other for reducing the whiteness that is ME), one trip downtown (which felt like the most perfect afternoon in July…sigh), and lots and lots of resting.

It’s weeks like this when I am reminded that San Luis Obispo is a gem. She boasts of the outdoors with endless nooks and crannies to be explored, and she convinces you that she existed long before a campus full of artificially-lit classrooms and studios did. It just takes a week without class and an extra hour of sunlight to realize it.

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This week makes me want these:
summer nights–full of hearty conversation and giggles.
summer nights–in Italy.
summer nights–just so.

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