4th Estate, �16.99
Driving through the wind-blown volcanic ash of Wyoming, it seems impossible not to ask why anybody would live there. I live there. The best way I can describe the otherworldliness of the river by Bird Cloud, with its towering 400ft cliff, is to invoke Uluru in Australia's red centre. Where else could a woman who carries centuries of Native American tradition in her little finger set down her roots?
During the 1980s, my sister and I were kept talking by a man in a shop and avoided being possibly involved in a fatal car accident as a result. It turned out the man's name was Proulx. It turned out he was no relation. I have since done a lot of research into previous generations of people named Proulx and none of them are relations either. Ah well.
I have lived in many of the wildest and most spiritual parts of North America. I had to leave Newfoundland when the local restaurant stopped serving turbot cheeks and I now find myself drawn away from Centennial because many of the inhabitants are too working class and watch American football on the television. So it is to Bird Cloud I am drawn, to create a sensitive eco-mansion with a $10,000 Japanese soak bath. All for just me.
There were difficulties finding an architect capable of realising my vision in the backwoods of Wyoming, as most could not conceive of anything but the most basic lumber dwelling. Eventually, I came across Kevin McCloud. "Annie has a dream," he said. "She wants to create a defiantly modernist Bauhaus structure that will breathe in the ancient spirits of the region. And with the reclaimed metal sheeting on the outside walls, that glows in the same blood-red of long dead Sioux warriors during the three hours of annual sunlight, I think she might achieve it."
It was also hard to find the right craftsmen. We tried Idle Ian and Bodger Brian, but it was clear when they arrived on site five minutes late that they were not up to my exacting standards. Eventually, Kevin found Patronised Pete and Put-Upon Paul, and the build got under way in late 2005. I had to go away to Capri for the winter and didn't return to Bird Cloud until the following spring. I was horrified. Not only were the tatami prayer mats made of unsustainable rice-straw, but the window in my bedroom had been positioned three inches too far to the left and my view of the eagle's nest was blocked by the cliff. It took three tonnes of dynamite and several hundred thousand dollars to rectify that problem.
The following three years followed a similar rhythm. I would go away somewhere important and glamorous for the winter, while Patronised Pete and Put-Upon Paul would work round the clock in the snow, and then I would come back and scream at them for having got nearly everything wrong. Imagine my fury to discover that the concrete floor sloped 2mm from the door to the wall and that it was not the precise shade of umber I had specified. That cost a further $70,000 to put right.
Worse was to come. My Japanese soak bath flooded the downstairs living area, ruining its recycled teak flooring, the cupboard drawers didn't open noiselessly, the temperature control for my library was faulty, the deer antler door handles had not been polished and the Polygal windows arrived with the wrong kind of non-abrasive dirt. I couldn't write a word for weeks.
During the rare lulls between catastrophes, I would take to the outdoors, removing the cattle that had wandered on to my estate and communing with the sublime, while giant eagles soared above me, repeatedly yodelling, "Thank Christ someone as deep as Annie has come to live in this Godforsaken land" as they patrolled the desolate skies. And then, disaster once more. Not only had Moron Martin, the landscaper, planted non-native species of chenopodium throughout my 700 acres, he had used non-organic compost to do so. I had to remove three feet of topsoil throughout to avert an environmental disaster.
In 2009, after an agreeable six months in Germany, the work was complete and I was able to soak in my Japanese bath after a tough hour searching for prehistoric relics from the 19th century, congratulating myself that the project had only come in $4m over budget. And then Patronised Pete called to remind me that they didn't bother to clear the snow from the minor roads in winter, so I had really just built myself an expensive summer house. So my restless spirit must move once more. Luckily, Kevin has identified the perfect plot in the Yukon.
Digested read, digested: Grande Dame Designs.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/feb/14/bird-cloud-by-annie-proulx
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