Plans to Prose

The House We Live In: A Series on Building the Sustainable Home in Tucson, Arizona

 

In my work, when I am preparing a brief to present to a court, I start out with a plan. It begins as only the vaguest outline, the general shape, the key point or two I need to hit. I gather up the pieces—the research, the places from the record where the relevant things appear—and slowly the outline becomes a sharper and sharper picture of what exactly I am going to say and how. Sometimes this involves significant rearranging—some new case comes down, or I discover cases I hadn’t known about, or I simply get a better idea about how to string it all together. But ultimately, there always comes a point where the project must move from an outline to a piece of prose.

I can easily spend days avoiding this step. It’s as though I’m trapped by a force field. Everything I need is gathered around me, but there is something stopping me from translating the concepts from shorthand into sentences. Getting over the sill between plan and product requires a unique kind of energy no matter how good the plans are.

 

This weekend Matthew was here, and our first order of business was meeting with several builders. Our set of plans is starting to look complete – it lacks a certain level of detail needed to actually build it in some aspects but generally gives a complete picture of what the project is – so in addition to serving as an initial interview to help us ultimately choose a builder, they also gave us a chance to get some feedback from people who turn plans into buildings.

Having these conversations propelled my thinking about the house into a more concrete (ha) space. Whereas before I had thought about the spaces cerebrally, and imagined myself enjoying the finished spaces, I had never thought about the sheer physicality of it. Concrete must be poured. A water line must come into the house from somewhere. Bricks are aligned and cut in precise ways. Gutters attach to the roof. The ground must be compacted, the beams hauled up to the ceiling, the ductwork fed through the right channels.

It’s easier, of course, in some ways, when the planning and the building are done by two different people. You finish the plans, and someone else executes them. But as the owner in this situation, I’m really the constant between the two phases. And while Matthew will still watch and supervise to some degree while the building goes on, the real work shifts to someone else. I, on the other hand, remain responsible, the ultimate decision-maker, through every phase. And I have to make that transition from plans to building.

 

In brief-writing, it’s almost never as bad as it seems right before I start the prose. The first sentence is the hardest. Probably that’s because it isn’t the task that’s challenging; it’s the mental and emotional work of accepting that something is about to become real. We’re still a few months out from actual construction, but it’s coming. Briefs have deadlines that ultimately hoist me over that fence. This project has momentum. In a lot of ways, it just keeps happening and I keep trailing along with it, making the decisions I need to make and sometimes, when I’m lucky, having beautiful dreams.