Intensity in Tent City
I tend to measure how well I’m doing in life by how few things I own. It lightens the load, making room for spontaneity, intimacy, and mobility leading to a more free and meaningful existence.
I was able to move my entire life, on a one way trip from Oakland via Bart, Caltrain, and a Lyft to a coliving house in Palo Alto. A total distance of only 42 miles, but a world away.
Oakland. Industrial and dense. Middle and lower income. Minority and immigrant. Hipster. Side show. Hood.
Palo Alto. Venture capital. Silicon valley. Higher education. A place where egos soar on high expectations. A place where dreams can escape the gravitational pull of reality, or burn into a pile of disappointment.
One of the most transformative periods in my life was working as a hotel manager and tour guide in rural China’s Yunnan province. Everyday brought me face to face with local villagers, and international travelers. My assumptions about life, what it means to be happy, how to live peacefully, all challenged in face to face interactions. Nowhere to hide. Far outside my comfort zone, the only was to succeed was to adapt.
We are now entering a critical time worldwide as the Millenial generation starts to flex our collective mental power to solve heavy existential issues of environmental, financial, and cultural injustices. While our economy and politics are changing, the fundamental ways in which our communities and neighborhoods are designed and inhabited needs to adapt to the new reality.
I grew up in suburbia. My parents did their best to provide a stable and secure environment for me to grow up with. Despite that, growing up in suburban Florida felt lifeless. Sprawl and shopping malls. Too many lawns to mow, and too many late nights with nothing to do except for donuts on the fairway of golf courses.
One time, a cop showed up at the door of my fathers house at midnight. The officer was responding to a report of assault with a corndog. Earlier that day, my best friend while driving down the road threw a half eaten corndog that he got from my house, out of his car window at a pedestrian for no apparent reason. Sticking it to the man? Or just sticking a man in the head with a half eaten frozen corndog. Either way, I was supposed to be the alibi since I was at work when the incident went down. Regardless of the intent, this is the Floridaman shit I had to deal with growing up. I left that life behind.
10 years later, I stand again on the doorstep of opportunity and challenge. The perfect canvas for creating the intelligent and conscious home. Alexandria.
Moving to Alexandria is my own personal challenge. Good stress to keep me grateful. A stone to maintain a sharp blade.
It had been 4 months since coming back to Oakland and moving in with my gracious and accommodating Sister for a second time in my adult life. Meant as a halfway house for overactive younger brothers, the time acted as a stepping stone. The day of venturing out would come, and come soon.
My sister’s face contorted in disgust, nostrils flaring, eyes rolling, her head violently recoiling. “You’re doing what!?”
“I’m going to be staying in a tent in the backyard.” I spoke more clearly and slower the second time.
A week later I was out of my sister’s home. Goodbye blue house. Good bye Vito the doggfather. Goodbye Sunday night family dinners. Goodbye Chinatown. Goodbye Dubs Nation.
Sister was sad to watch me go, but happy to see me progress into myself as a Chinaman in America.
Here at Alexandria, the tent is therapy. Always being connected is a bad thing, and working as a content farmer in a big tech company, the need for disconnection becomes even more urgent.
Sleeping outside, even just for a night is invigorating. The sound of crickets and the pitter patter of squirrels rustling up trees calms me. Leaves blowing outside my little nylon covering grounds me.
The first night staying in the tent, I was abruptly awoken in the early morning hours by the sound of sprinklers coming to life. I was paralyzed with fear as I braced for cold water with clenched eyelids. It never came, and I went back to sleep grateful to be dry.
Aside from the unusual sleeping accommodations, Alexandria has other amenities including hardwood floors for handstands, lounging areas to discuss current events, a 2 car garage with no cars, a tiny house, vegetable garden, hot tub, hammock, and backyard adjacent washing machine for growing greywater gardens.
Fortunately, I’m not the only crazy person living in the house. There is a cast of characters who will be inhabiting more and more of my life as we grow this home together one bro-hug at a time.
Alexandria is live! Here’s the website.
My hopes for Alexandria are high. Will the home break the mold for suburban living, or come crashing down like subprime mortgage backed securities?
Keep it locked on Medium as the story continues to unfold.
