Why can't I just do it right the first time?

As I've mentioned before in this blog, my mother sewed pretty well all my clothes until I was through school. She did very meticulous work and I can remember her saying with some exasperation, "Why is it that I always have to pick out seams?" I, and perhaps she, actually thought that there would be a project where she wouldn't have to pick out any seams.

Ways it didn't work

Now that I've been at it long enough to call myself a woodworker I see the whole business of having to redo things a bit differently.  I'm currently at work on a box project for a friend.  The boxes themselves are not complicated yet, I'm on my ninth or tenth attempt to get it right. These boxes do have to be a certain size and shape to hold table napkins. The design is basic: four equal sides with a groove cut to house the bottom of the box. No lid, no hinges. It's amazing to me how many creative ways I can get it wrong. I must have made three or four attempts where the sides turned out to be too short because of one mistake or another.  Then there were the mitres that didn't quite come together. The version I worked on last night really looked like it might be successful until I cut the grooves for the bottom in the wrong location despite measuring twice and cutting once.

One I didn't intend to make

Because of all of this I am learning. I usually don't make the same mistake in exactly the same way: I find new and exciting ways to make it. I've also learned that I have a choice at each juncture: I can throw up my hands and quit, get annoyed and throw wood, get annoyed and quit for the day, or laugh and try it again remembering Thomas Edison and the light bulb. I suppose you might say I'm learning patience. I'm learning that nobody is going to fix it for me although I can ask for help to unravel a problem if I'm stuck.  Nobody is going to make me redo it. I can walk away any time I want or I can choose to, "Chalk it up to experience,"(one of my mother's favourite sayings) and try it again. Most of all, I've learned that I probably won't do it right the first time and that, in fact, most people don't do it right the first time.

I've been fortunate enough, through the the kindness of friends and internet, to hang out in various woodworkers' shops to watch them work. These folks are far beyond my skill level and they still make mistakes. Often their mistakes don't require them to start from the very beginning  but they do require a certain amount of head scratching to figure out what do do next. As skill increases the standard of what is acceptable increases. Maybe there are some people who can complete a project without having to redo anything but I don't think I'm going to aspire to that. If it happens I'll get out the fireworks and have a huge celebration and if it doesn't, I'll shake my head at my infinitely creative ability to get it wrong, give myself a break and then return to the shop to try again. Woodworking is what I love to do. It is fascinating enough to keep at it even as the burn bin fills up and the line of boxes I didn't intend to make lengthens. I'll head back into the shop later today and maybe this will be the day I finish the napkin box.

Unexpected Treasures

It's no secret that I have too many books. I don't know how that happens.  I make piles of books to give away to second-hand book sales and still my shelves are full.  I make it a rule not to buy a book unless I can't get it as an audiobook (first choice) or an e-book (second choice) but there are some books that aren't available in either format.  Then there are the magazines.  I read some of them and then give them away to unsuspecting teacher friends for art projects or I put them in the recycling. That doesn't apply to the woodworking mags though. I keep them and they are taking up more and more shelf space. I have gone to an online subscription for one of them and I find I don't look at it very often and I like being able to trot out to the shop with several magazines on a given topic under my arm.

I recently discovered that the public library will accept books, up to 20 at a time. Good chance, I thought, to go through my books, put some in a bag and drop them off at the library the next time I'm by.  I started on a box in the basement that I haven't opened for quite a while thinking that I could easily just put the contents in the bag. If I had dumped them into the bag without looking that would have worked; however I didn't.  I took each one out and looked at it. Some I put back in the box; some went into the bag, and others I brought upstairs to have a look at before I put them in the bag.

Six made the trip upstairs, books by Thornton W. Burgess that I remember loving as a kid.  One has my father's name in it and the inscription, "Christmas 1920."  My dad would have been 7 years old. I think Mum read all of the books to me and I probably had all of them at one time.  Somehow these six have survived the cut. I chose the one with Dad's name in it. The cover has come off and there are stains on some of the pages.  My ten or eleven-year-old hand added my name to the front of the book and recopied the title. As I read The Adventures of Prickly Porky I found myself smiling and then laughing out loud at the antics of the anthropomorphic animals. I was prepared to turn up my nose: talking animals sometimes have a bad rap in children's literature. I was delighted all over again.  Yes, the stories are a bit preachy in spots but the characters are engaging and, although they talk (sometimes in accents), they behave very much as animals do.  Even though the porcupine and the dog both have names and personalities, the porcupine curls up and whacks the dog across the snout with his tail when the dog comes close enough to sniff him. The dog runs off in pain and the porcupine uncurls himself and goes about his business. That's what dogs and porcupines do. None of the major characters is killed off by their natural enemies but I have no doubts in reading the stories that they could be. That's what predatory and prey species do.

I wanted to find out more about the guy who wrote these books so I went off on a google hunt and turned up some information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_Burgess He was prolific and there is a school and a couple of conservation organizations named after him. He wrote an autobiography which I'd like to read but it's not available as an e-book and the two copies I managed to track down are going for $85.00 US.  I don't want to read it that badly. There is one volume of his collected works available as an e-book but not in Canada. By that point I realized that I was kidding myself if I thought I was going to put those books in a bag for the library. I'm going to read the other five and then put them back into the box in the basement where I can discover them all over again in a few years. In the meantime I'll attack the bookshelves in my study to see if I can't get twenty books to put in the van for the next time I'm near a library.

Thoughts on eyebrow threading

Knot-hole box. Beetle-kill spruce, Manitoba maple and teak.

It's coming up on the end of June with all its regular year-end festivities and concerts and, in between times, I've had a marvellous time in the shop. I've made a cutting board, some boxes, and a small foldable table that sits between the seats in the camper to hold snacks for the driver.

Twelve years ago I began my journey as a woodworker and, while I still consider myself somewhat of a novice, I can do many more things than I could when I began. I now use my table saw confidently which makes the work very much easier.  I'm seeing more details than I once did and, on a good day, I can take steps to fix what will cause me grief later on in the process. People are beginning to come to me for help. I've agreed to plane down and refinish a counter top for the owner of a small flatbread company.  The top has some kind of urethane finish on it which is peeling off in great chunks. I think he's operating on a shoe-string and I have the skills and knowledge to do this for him. Then there are the oak chairs from the church. They are a nightmare to fix but I've done two and will pick up another one in the fall. I'm glad I'm not the only one working on that project.

Cutting board Manitoba maple, cherry and walnut

One of the biggest satisfactions in this work is to make something beautiful. I chatted with a friend the other day and she told me about having henna applied to her hands and having her eyebrows dyed and threaded to reshape them. We laughed together as we so often do when we marvel at our differences. I have never had a manicure or a pedicure. I never think about the colour of my eyebrows or my hair and the clothes I wear are meant for comfort, not for style. I have a tiny sense of what is appropriate dress in various situations and try to be clean and tidy. Other than that, I'm simply not interested and have trouble understanding why appearance is important to many people. I always thought that women used beauty products to impress others but as we talked and I examined a cutting board I had just finished I had another idea.

I'm guessing that most human beings require beauty in their lives and take steps to create it. I use wood; others take photos, or arrange their living spaces or take car engines apart and rebuild them so they purr. Maybe applying makeup and choosing stylish clothing helps people create beauty, first of all for themselves and then for others. Maybe the sense of satisfaction when standing back and looking at what they have created is akin to what I feel when I run my hand over a box or a spoon I have made.  I can hear some of you saying, "Duh!" but I've never entertained that possibility before. I'm not about to go out and buy makeup or colour my hair;  that's not me. But, rather than being absolutely baffled at the desire to appear beautiful, I think I may now understand it - just a little. In my books, any understanding that helps me walk in the footsteps of another is a good one.

Learning Sideways

Often it's not enough for me to learn a lesson once.  I learn it and slip into old habits. At some point the universe whacks me upside the head and I have another chance to 'get it.'  I had one of those experiences this morning.  I'm in Vancouver attending a writing workshop that has become an annual ritual in my life. When I first began to attend these I felt almost panicky when I sat down to write.  What if I couldn't think of anything?  What if all of it was drivel? "Keep writing,"  I told myself, "just keep pressing those keys.  Keep going even if you're tired of it.  Change direction and keep going."

Over the last few years I have been writing differently and, as I have noticed before in my life, what I have learned has come sideways. When I was teaching, something in science, music or art would often bring insights about how to teach. Today I approach writing differently because I'm a woodworker. When I'm doing a project in wood I often take time to just sit back and look at it.  I'm not even conscious of thinking about it sometimes. I just sit and take it in. Sometimes I talk to myself about it and sometimes I call it rather uncomplimentary names. Other times I get busy with a pencil and paper and draw out possibilities while I talk to myself.

In all of these activities there is a stepping back without stepping away. I'm still engrossed in the project but I can now allow time and space to just sit with it. I'm finding the same thing with my writing. I won't say that it makes the writing better but I think it makes the process better for me. When I come to a place where I want to stop and sit with it I do. I get up, make a cup of tea, look out the window and then go back to it. It is a less pressured, less rushed way of writing than I have practiced in the past and it feels more sure-footed. Knowing me,I will have to learn this lesson again, but for now, I feel more confident with the stops and starts and with the silences.

The adventure continues.

Tea with the Senegal

I haven't looked back to see the precise date of the entry but early on I wrote a blog post called "Breakfast with the Budgies." Much has changed since that post. Among other things, we are down to 1 bird from a maximum of 4 and I no longer eat breakfast.  Odie has been moulting lately and has been both cranky and weird.  He's been nippy which is understandable as the new sheathed-feathers poke through his skin and hurt if we catch them the wrong way. He bit Richard's arm a while ago. He has been quieter than usual and, if I were to anthropomorphize even further, I'd say he was sulking.

I'm not much good at selfies but you get the idea.

I was out at a friend's working on a wood project for two days over the long weekend.  Odie didn't have much to do with Richard but when I came home Odie called me  5 times asking for head scratches.  Now that's weird. In case you're wondering I've taught him a particular whistle when he wants my attention.  Some people think I'm nuts but I find it more pleasant than having him squawk.  When he whistles I go over to the cage and he puts his head against the bars so I can scratch.  Sometimes our scratching sessions last for several minutes while he cheeps quietly.

I've been saying for some time that if Odie and I could get to a place where I could move him around the house he could hang out with me in my study and he'd get a lot more attention.  I'm a bit of a slow learner.  Richard often sits in the dining room with his computer where Odie can see him.  Today I decided to take my computer into the dining room and sit beside Odie's cage while I watched one of my woodworking videos and had my tea. When Odie naps in the afternoon he sits in the middle of his cage on the large square perch and he was there when I sat down with my computer and my tea.  I pulled a chair up close to the cage and he came up to the front and fixed one eye on the screen.  We watched for half an hour like that.  Every once in a while I'd look over at him and he would blink.  He didn't ask for head scratches.

As I'm writing this I'm back in my study where I can concentrate better and all is quiet in the bird cage. I don't know if having tea with Odie regularly will make any difference to the way we get along but it's not a hard thing for me to do and it certainly can't hurt.  I'll keep you posted.

Thoughts on the Fort McMurray fire

As I write this the city of Fort McMurray in northern Alberta is in flames.  I've always been afraid of fire and to know the forest, that seems to be a place of solace and peace, is burning taking a city with it brings nightmare images. I look around my study at all the stuff and, while it is only stuff, it comforts me. Photos of my mother, my husband, my cousins and my friends hang on the walls. There is a painting of a polar bear labelled "Iceland 1945," that belonged to my father.  A friend of a friend escaped Fort Mac with only her purse and her vehicle.

This disaster is not about me.  I am safe hundreds of kilometres to the south and the pavement outside the house is still wet from a morning rain. Yet one of the things we humans share is our ability to imagine and as I look around me and hear Odie whistle his morning greeting from the other room, I do not stop my imagination from going to the heat, smoke, and terror of the fire.  What would I take? What would I most miss?  I hope I never have to find out.  I'm sure the people of Fort Mac hoped they would never have to answer those questions either. Now their homes are gone.

I wonder if the United Church my father helped raise money to build in the 1970's has been engulfed in flames. I see again the mirror my dad had beside his desk with a Fort McMurray sticker on it. These are small connections but they are connections none-the-less. What will we do now, the people of Alberta, the people of Canada to help those who have lost so much?  In Canada, a first-world country we don't expect that disaster can strike. We have so much, so much freedom, so much wealth, so much technology and yet, one spark can take all those things away. It leaves me humbled, horrified and hopeful.

When I first heard about the fire, lines from a poem by Christopher Wiseman came back to me. I've been thinking about giving away my poetry collection, haven't looked at it for years, and yet I was very glad to be able to walk into the basement, open up a box of books and find it.

This poem was written in the late 1980's, still its lines came back to me and speak to how humans in need and those who can help, treat each other. I hope Chris will forgive me for quoting the poem here. In addition to helping with practicalities in times of disaster, we can fiercely insist on making art for art nourishes what is best in us. My thoughts are with the people of Fort McMurray and all those who feel the impact of the fire.

The Fall and After

The longest day of 1987. A Sunday.

The beach warm and crowded. The tide out.
And there's a man, I'd guess over eighty,
In a suit, a tie, and polished shoes,
Walking, with a stick, slowly towards the sea.
He comes to eight stone steps leading down,
Begins, trips, pitches right onto the road

Below, landing face first, lying still.
No glasses, thank God, my first thought,
Right above him, seeing it all happen
From a third floor window, no phone there.
People come quickly, touch, then turn him,
Blood pouring from his head, his face
Scuffed and filthy, his suit knee torn out.

His eyes don't focus, seem sightless,
But he moves a little, as if in quiet protest
At being there in the road like that.
Someone runs for a phone, another finds Kleenex
And holds it to his head. They gather round
And for a moment it looks like a big family,
He an elder, hurt and needing help,

Trying to sit up, to not be a nuisance.
Now a woman, about thirty, is sitting holding him,
Bare arms cradling his head to her white blouse,
Lips moving as she talks quietly to him,
And I am suddenly crying, surprised
By the thick heavy sobs shaking me.
At last they come and take him away.

A few stitches and a new suit. But is that all?
I think perhaps he'll never try again
To walk towards the sea on a Sunday afternoon.
And the next day his blood is still there,
Though you couldn't tell it from the oilstains,
And people go down the steps and tread on it,
Walking across the road to the beach.

What will I take from this? Just how he
Plunged forward, as if diving into water,
Just knowing how old we get, how bodies fail us,
How people will run to help, and do their best,
That we are, deep down, still gentle,
And, in the end, all we can do is watch,
Say what words we can, and wait until they come.


Christopher Wiseman
Saint Andrews, Scotland
published in Missing Persons
copyright 1989
Sono Nis Press
Victoria, British Columbia

In Praise of Grey Days

I hate to admit it but over the last six months or so I've come to appreciate cloudy days.  When the sun shines I feel I SHOULD be out walking or riding my bike and in order to do either of those things I SHOULD put on sunscreen and I dislike the greasy feel of it on my face.  Ya, I know, it's a first world problem; suck it up and get out there. I often dither about, end up staying in and then I feel guilty. I'd probably enjoy myself once I got out the door but there's something harsh about the sunlight that makes me feel just a little like hiding. I don't think I'd make it at the coast where the grey days are very frequent and perhaps part of my appreciation for the dull days is that it is sunny here for many of the days in the year regardless of the temperature.

When it's cloudy and a bit chilly I feel somehow justified in staying in. It's as if the weather gives me permission to sit wearing my fuzzy clothes and drink tea. I do those things anyway but when it's dull out I'm more able to put the 'shoulds' to the side and enjoy myself.  Today the sky is overcast and the light tube above my desk casts a soft light. I'm in my warm clothes and I've just finished a cup of tea.  As I head into the shop to sweep up shavings and rearrange things again, I'll continue to ponder what it is that's so appealing about staying in these days and I'll continue to poke at the feeling that it's more acceptable to want to stay in when it's cloudy outside.