The first two days have been a smash success. The strawbale walls are nearly complete! We're building a lot more than a workshop up here, though. It's remarkable to me how tightly knit our group seems to be already. It's been effortless, connecting with these people. I can't say enough how goddamned refreshing it is to have real conversations, to talk openly with like-minded folks about our hopes and fears and dreams.
It's scarcely been 72 hours and I feel as though every single one of us is fast friends. We stayed up late last night, drinking, laughing and singing songs around the fire. It was glorious. I'm of a loner by nature—the experience of "team spirit" is, for the most part, a mythological construct for me. The last two days? I'm overcome by it! I'm sure the honeymoon phase would wear off, but I think I understand for the first time why someone might want to start a commune.
We're three days into the workshop and things are really humming along. Now that everyone understands the basics of what we're up to, it's pretty much a free-for-all at the worksite. People have organically split off into groups, each tackling some portion of the build. Most of my day is spent jumping from scene to scene, answering a seemingly unending stream of questions as people run into all the weird gotchas our structure has to offer—with hardly a single straight line in the building, there are plenty!
