Faced with the question of open possibility, I chose this.  Asked if there were no parameters, what would I build?  I built this.  What would you love more than anything to build? I was asked.  I came up with this project.  I built platform—a deck really—in a tree.  It is not extraordinary in any regard.  It’s height is reasonable; it stands 9’6” from the forest floor.  It’s size is unremarkable, if strangely proportioned.  It measures 4 feet in width and 8 feet in length.  These proportions create a dynamic of limited motion on the platform.  There are comfortable clear spaces for two people to sit.  There is no prescribed activity to perform on this elevation (I am here now as I write).  The image on my desktop is one that seems to describe what I’ve done by building this.  It is an image of two red triangles side by side equal in all ways.  In the left figure, the bottom length is named BASE and the top angle is name APEX.  In the right figure, the left side length is named BASE and the bottom right angle is named APEX.  All this figure does it to shift the ground plane.  All I’ve done in this project is to shift the ground plane.  It sounds like a task that needn’t be done, and yet I’ve made an illustration of this process my desktop background.  I’ve designated it to the space reserved for the most pleasing image of this period of time, or the image that dictates the undercurrent of my thought when working on my computer.

My commute to work on this is to traverse a porch, a lawn, a hill, a lawn, a path through a thicket of tree things (waist high), a clearing and the ground is dark and wet, a rock (you could go around it), a crashing on unsure footing, with the site in sight.  Is this why I did this?

The actions that have been involved are as follows (maybe therein lies my motivation):  driving, buying wood, making plans, cutting lengths, setting up shop (was wonderful), hauling materials over said commute, talking measurements and logistics with Niomi, making up methods, researching methods, solving problems by inventing strenuous contortions of my and her body, using tools, using tools wrong, using a ratchet, my body hurting from new and difficult movements (this seems like a likely motivation), being in dangerous situations (likely), using tools and objects I’m unfamiliar with, gradually assembling the object I’ve planned.  Finished.  Are any of these actions the  reason I built this?

What I’ve done by making this is subject to observation, but mostly speculation.

I made a place.  I made a ground.  I made an away.  I am afraid of heights and getting hurt.