The John Marshall experience

Junkies everywhere, listen up: 

If you could mainline a little of what John Marshall’s got, you’d be blissed out and (drug) free.

We’ve got a very cool dude living with us these days. He’s not exactly living with us — as in, in our home — but he’s on our property. In his camper. 

Let me tell you briefly what you need to know. 

John Marshall has been living a uniquely free life for the past twelve years. He trades a little time with his mad skills on your property — he’s a carpenter, landscaper, roofer, and all-around handymensch — in exchange for habitating there. 

We’ve got a large property in the ruburbs — the rural suburbs — lined with forest on three sides, so this is the perfect spot for this kind of barter.

But we have the best part of the deal. John Marshall is a man alive in the moment like you rarely see, dogged in his project zen when he’s at work, and a true happiness sprite.

And for a man in his sixties he’s nimble. 

(He’s a yoga teacher too.) (!)

I receive texts like these from him:

Good morning good morning beautiful day for us contemplation meditation . . . [then stuff he’s working on that day] . . . [followed by a grand jeté finale] . . . it is always terrific to say good morning to you!

What has he got, this John Marshall? 

Connection joy. 

He taps into his Source. 

He connects to the people he interacts with. 

In his work, he embodies flow as articulated by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi — that immersive and transcendent space you enter when you are engaged in work you treasure and are stretching yourself (but not straining yourself). 

He’s connected to living as lightly and as freely as he can.

What else can you call it but connection joy. John Marshall connects in every aspect of his life and it shows. 

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