I work across from the TransAmerica Pyramid Building in San Francisco, a wonderful spire that peeks above our infamous fog in a gesture of victory and optimism. Currently, the Pyramid is being renovated, re-caulked, and waterproofed by Rainbow Waterproofing.
In August I had begun a journalism class in the evenings after work, intending to push myself to produce, get me to begin to reposition myself into “journalistic mode” and carve out a time dedicated solely to writing. I had every good intention on continuing with focus, and then life got in the way.
I know: a good journalist makes no excuses. Which is why I’m in branding.
But I had to find a story idea for the class. I figured I would begin by writing a historical article about the Pyramid and tourism and famous San Francisco sites. But something about the waterproofing process fascinated me, and I wanted to explore why, how and when this was done. I introduced myself to the foreman; interviewed the project manager; left messages for the company headman. I wanted to go up to the top, see the inner-workings, where the elevator stopped short many flights of stairs before the top of the building — and the small, red, radial light that winked at planes in the night. I wanted to learn all about the cleaning, sand blasting, proofing, caulking, bracing, masonry, restoring and art of how to save a building from time.
I ended up negligent on the class, but kept on curious about the profession. And at some point, after talking to the men who climb the building’s side like spiders — who attach themselves with carabiners and platforms and stirrups, to fight the wind and the rain and gravity as they climb and search out the monolith’s weaknesses and soft spots — I realized: it’s not about waterproofing some damn building.
It’s about fighting entropy.
When you begin to really look at why we struggle in such efforts, it is of course not about “restoration of landmark[s] and historically significant buildings” for posterity sake; it’s not about maintaining a building so that it doesn’t crumble into rubble. It’s a symbol for the amount of time and energy and attention that it takes to keep anything from disintegrating into chaos—including and especially ourselves. What we create is all we have, all we will ever leave behind, and that comes to stand for who we are in the present. And without continual maintenance and attention and effort we all become useless clumps of matter. Or worse: morose manifestations of spirits, wandering aimlessly in search of purpose, like the lopsided building slumped heavily I look at nightly from my kitchen window — no one fixes the old sad sap because no one identifies with it. No one owns it, and so it slowly sags and buckles under it’s own weight. We are like buildings in that we need someone to own us, to care when our joints need re-caulking, our surfaces washed clean. It takes a lot of energy to maintain structure and strength, and sometimes one’s own spine isn’t enough.
God, allow me a good waterproofer.