The Iliad

Dear Future Self (and all my friends who follow along):

Today is September 1, 2025. Today is the nominal start date to build the JP Ranch ranch house. My builder, Eustaquio Sanchez (let’s call him TKO), started moving in the earth moving and compacting equipment and fill dirt a couple days ago to level and elevate the pad upon which the house will sit. 

Yesterday, we had torrential rains (6-8 inches) in the area. Fortunately, there was very little damage to the pad, but we will have to wait a day for the location to dry out before hauling in the final loads of fill dirt. 

Today is Labor Day. Yes, the day no one is supposed to do any labor. However, my labors start today. And they will end when the house is completed and signed off. I expect to be faced with 12 challenges during this interval. We won’t count yesterday’s floods because it happened the day before my labors officially begin, and in any event did not do serious damage.

I have been preparing for this day since I bought the property in May 2023. A portion of the land has been cleared for the house, an access road built, a water well drilled to 650’ into the Carizzo aquifer (good job, Henry!), electric power line run to the site, septic system installed, a trailer for temporary accommodation bought and hauled to the property (thanks Phil and Alex!), shelter for the trailer and a workshop constructed, designs completed (thanks Monica!), and a myriad of other tasks accomplished to prepare for Day One.

I am sure my future self will one day want to recall, as you may yourself be wondering, why build a house? It is a project bound to create stress. For example: Avoiding change orders, debating last minute ideas like paint colors and kitchen appliances, living in my trailer and forsaking trips to visit the kids or friends, indeed, being unable to do another 30 day Camino! Why not just clear some land and move in a luxury motor home? It’s not like this is my full time living quarters. I may spend three months out of the year here!

This place, that I call the wranch, is beautiful and serene. It is rugged, raw nature. It is mystical. Caddo people lived and died here centuries ago. Texas Rangers chased Comanches nearby, to make it safe for the great cattle drives and settlers moving westwards. I am surrounded by cattle pastures, but they disappear beyond the wranch which is thick with trees and wild growth and underbrush, home to wild animals, not domesticated ones. It brings me peace and soothes the mind. It is a place I can call home.

Home is a place within you. A house is a physical place where you park your body and eat and sleep. For me, a home is a spiritual place where I can listen to the divine currents of life, like water trickling in a small stream on the Dragonte. I can retreat into this spiritual world wherever I happen to be in the physical world. 

One afternoon, while sitting outside my trailer as the sun was disappearing behind the trees, I saw something which I tried to capture in a poem. I am struggling to get my poetic meter right, so excuse the bumpy ride. But I think you will get a feel for the internal reaction to a physical event: 

Poem for You
1.
Two birds flew not far from me.  
Dark against a dark’ning sky
Above the golden aspen’s leaves

First the one, and then the other, 
And in a breath they disappeared.
I did not see another.

Looking again at the aspen tree:
She was aware the birds flew by,
Her leaves shimmered excitedly. 

A thought distracts - I look again
The leaves still shine but they are still:
Unmoving, unmoved.  

2.
Which was the cock, and which the hen?
Giving giggles to the aspen tree?
Will they ever fly by again?

Was it the lateness of the day?
Setting sun brings chilly winds
Pinkish gold her last ray. 

The birds perhaps were incidental 
To the shivers of the aspen tree
Yet to me their being was essential

I’m a drop of rain in the sky
There is no woody majesty in me
But we are flyers, the birds and I!

3.
When appeared the bird and sky and tree
A cloud was parted, revealing to me
A fleeting glimpse at eternity

Past and future in unity
As immense as the sky
As regal as the golden tree

So bright, then dark — and light again
My lover and I in heavenly flight
Yet unmoving. Together.

4. 
Two birds flew not far from me
Dark against a dark’ning sky
Above the golden leaves of an aspen tree.

First the one, and then the other, 
And in a breath they were gone.
I did not see another.

5. 
Only later did I realize - 
I must have missed it in my awe,
The truth I seek was in my eyes

Two birds were one, as night swallowed day,
I heard the whisper, lasting forever
But like trickling water, it fades away

Was my vision not what it seemed?
A delusion or trick of the mind?
Remembered as though it were dreamed?


6.
Only later did I realize, 
That a thought passes in a flash
But it lasts an eternity. 

Two birds flying home at night,
Nothing special to ponder deep
Just a dream, and now I wake.

And yet, I know, deep within me,
That I flew with those birds
Past that golden aspen tree

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

And soon I will explain why I titled this post The Iliad and not The Labors of Hercules.