It’s the holidays and I think about my dad a lot. It’s been a minute and I saw Christmas pictures of him and he doesn’t look happy but when I skype he’s always super joyful.
Thinking about the future, thinking about building houses, thinking about that independent gene that I have, I have so many memories of my dad and I doing things. Starting them, not really knowing what the fuck we’re doing and then completing them.
I remember him getting some pile of sand delivered to make concrete slabs for the family house. I was a kid so it seemed like an entire dune was sitting there on the patio. Of course the first thing I wanted to do what to run on top of it and slide down and scream and laugh. And dad would always be really calm and straight up like “hey, I need this sand to build something, if you jump on it it will get mixed up with the dirt and disappear in the ground, do you know how much that pile of sand costs?”
Oh yeah we fixin’ that too. It’s easy. You just start doing it and then at some point it’s done.
Bam. He was right though. So I quickly became more serious about that, trying to help him out. I remember one day annoying the hell out of him like “can I help you please? I’m bored” and him being like “there’s a broom over there and if you could clean up this area that would help me a lot”. I remember being mad, thinking I’m worth more than that you know? But it taught me that everything is important when you build things and that you have to start somewhere.
We built/fixed/installed so many things I can’t believe it: tiles on the floor, radiant heat concrete slabs, full windows, doors, entire electric systems, full bathrooms, roofs that didn’t exist. Everything. I still remember back when I had just tasted California in 09 I was back home in August to goddamn replace 20m/65 feet of underground sewer pipes in the front yard with PVC pipes and two years later we had to fix a big ass roof, cleaning up every single tile. I mean. My bedroom didn’t exist and my dad was like “yeah it will be up there and I’ll install a small shower in your closet too” and I wasn’t happy about that because it seemed like it was too much, delaying my room –I had a good sense of the importance of getting shit done already- but he fucking did it anyway and it was dope as hell.
That’s his room now.
And that’s what I remember the most. His absolute and brutal persistence. This mental state of I Will Make This Work. Fast forward now and I’m like him, always surprised that most people are scared to do anything if they haven’t done it all their lives. My whole life is about going for it, going at it even if it’s pretty much unfamiliar. Scared, but not scared. Very useful for design stuff.
But also, it’s so insanely satisfying. Taking on a challenge, building something that didn’t exist and then it does! You use and enjoy it and it’s just one of the best feeling ever. You don’t feel like you need to buy shit. you don’t feel like you need to know what others are doing. You’re simply happy and proud. It’s beautiful.
I owned knowing that to my dad. I just wanted to honor him while he’s alive. Merci ‘pa, t’es le meilleur.