The vanishing house

We could maybe bring in a bit of humility, Galosh. Like, stop being such eternal pricks. This land was made (not just) for you and me

Find above the narrated and illustrated version of this text.

My dearest Galosh,

Last week I overheard you at that party talking to those guys about prefab foam-insulated houses in off-grid settings and you were so enthusiastic. You have this faith in technology, where if we just invent more, then maybe ...we're saved!

I should have spoken up right then, but I was so in awe of your effortless charm and, well, you know how I am...

You still hope that sustainable building can also mean sticking a solar panel on top of it and calling it a day. Or polyurethane-filled walls - with a nice green roof.

I instead boldly hope that all new buildings outside of urban environments could be completely compostable. If we can save the little that remains of unbuilt land in our fields and forests, then, after...you know, after..., nature at least won't have to deal with concrete slabs, polystyrene and an aluminum tubes. It would simply need to do what it does best: gather its troops of mushrooms and bacteria and slowly but surely eat up our walls and roofs and floors and everything we used as homes and make them into *their* homes yet again. And their dinners.

We suppose we will be able - or willing - to unpack (and recycle - ha ha!) existing buildings after use. We won't. No one will care.

I know this is a place of poetry that I'm creating here for you Galosh my love. A "specks of dust in the sunlight" type of world. It's what you heart needs. But in the corners of this space creep the images of other realities and the hardships that await. The harshness and the baffling force of nature's reckoning. And the least I can do is minimize the damage moving forward.

So making a house today means to me building something that, left un-attended, will not exist anymore in 60 years time. And it might sound audacious a statement. Yet we are not the first generation to think and act that way. People have built with decay in mind for centuries. For millennia! This is why we don't have remnants of civilizations that built with wood or mud. Only the ruins of stone walls buried under moss. Everything else just got composted away. Along with their inhabitants.

There's a difference in approach between our ancestor's houses and ours. Generation after generation would build and rebuild the same house, with just a few incremental changes at a time. The house's lifetime was short, the materials coming back to their natural state just in time for a fresh couple of newlyweds to put the stones back together and build their own nest. The same as it had been.

Isn't strange that they would do that? Wouldn't you think they would want to "express their personality" or at least adapt to societal changes and "market opportunities"? No. "This is the way we do it around here" means: for this particular context, your ancestors and all your neighbors ancestors have tirelessly tinkered the method. And you will abide by it.". This is where proverbs, rituals and seasonal festivities come from. Every winter, the pig is slaughtered, to make provisions for the cold months ahead, and every spring we fast, to get a new start on the year to come.

What is obviously lacking here is openness to new ideas that don't fit the method. Change in paradigm is so very hard to provoke in traditional cultures. Come to think it, change in paradigm is hard in any culture! But this reticence can be seen as evolutionary advantage: "Don't try this new way of cooking this plant or it might kill you". "Don't stray away from concrete slabs, your grandpa used concrete slabs and so will you. It is our heritage!" The great advantage of sticking to tradition is that, for the context it was developed in, it consistently works.

But our context is changing, and fast. England is having bloody 40C heat waves for heavens sake! Does that mean we need to insulate ourselves in more and more layers of plastic foam and air-conditioning to keep the thermostat happy? Buying greener light bulbs and bragging about it is honestly not gonna help much.

Instead we could maybe bring in a bit of humility, Galosh. Like, stop being such eternal pricks. Stop seeing our tiny creature comfort as the priority and think of nature as a beloved, not as a resource. Realize this Land wasn't made just for you and me. It's all staring us in the face, we just can't see it for our egos.

You know I love you,

Jo

Earworms much?

Of course, “This land is your land”. But in a version you might not now that is for sure gonna stick to your brain:

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