Workshops are painful.  

Workshops are hard.

The planning, prepping, organizing, moving heavy materials, lugging salvaged cinder blocks from one place to another, shoveling sand and clay, teaching and talking nonstop for 2 days, running from tarp to tarp….and then the clean up. Ohhhhh the clean up.

Then there’s all the expectations that I want to meet.  The participants who are paying money to attend and the client who is expecting to be left with a beautiful structure. Not ever wanting to disappoint anyone.

Then there’s the unruly and oftentimes unpredictable Mother Nature who plays her cards whenever she feels like it with no regard to scheduled workshops, as in this most recent one.

Today I sit on my couch, calloused hands, an aching back, and a sniffling nose.  

The pay is minimal to nil when it’s all said and done…once you total up hours of hard labor, gas money, money spent on tarps that now have holes in them, and tools which are now rusted from mud that sat too long.

So, why? What’s the point? Why do I keep doing this to myself?

These questions constantly move through my brain leading up to every workshop, time and time again.

As I sit here on my couch I can remember long days in the office before I quit my job and I would daydream out the window of laying a cinderblock, picking a weed, shoveling a load of sand…anything to be outside and away from the damn computer.

I realize now, that I AM living this dream. Though the days leading up to the workshops are stressful and hard on my body, I am outside.  I am using my hands. I sat on the ground with the trees surrounding me and the birds chirping around me.  I had my Dad on one side and Tom the Mason on the other, diligently working hand-in-hand to get the job done so we could go home and rest our bodies over a hot meal and a cold beer.

On Friday night, after two 10 hour days of work, Tom the Mason said,

‘It’s hard work, but it feels damn good April.’

And he’s right.

There’s not much more satisfying to me then to create something with my hands, to watch it grow and come alive.   There’s just something so empowering and uplifting about it.

During the workshops, I often catch myself in these moments where it’s like catching the big wave, you’re riding high.  You look around and people are supporting one another, carrying a heavy bucket together, and squishing mud between their toes (or rubber boots).  The rain is pouring down yet people are so focused on the goal that they forget they could be sitting in their cozy homes.  People are laughing and joking. Real teamwork is happening and people forget that they are doing manual labor for someone else’s home. The work is hard and heavy but some kind of long-lost  ancestral kind of thing is being tapped into; people are remembering how it once was when communities came together and worked together.  The inner-child in us all is coming alive!

I look around and my friends and family, old and new, are abundant.  

As the project grows the excitement does too. People catch the ‘Cob Fever’ and they can’t wait to get out there the next day!

As always, by the end of the weekend I’m overcome with excitement, gratitude, and amazement at what was created in such a short time.  It gives me hope. It fuels my fire. And it keeps me going.  I go to bed dreaming about all of the smiles this little project will bring to many people to come.

And so as I sit here on my couch… calloused hands, an aching back, and the sniffles…..a lazy snoring dog at my side…. beans soaking for dinner and not much more than a penny to my name, I think, ‘It’s hard work, but it feels damn good….I’m living my dream.’