House work
Posted on | January 22, 2006 |
In a new book by William Stafford that I picked up on my artist date last week I read: “…The process of writing is kind of a trusting to the nowness, to the immediacy of the experience. And if you enter into the artistic endeavor with standards, already arrived-at ideas of what you want to do, you’re not entering creatively into the immediacy of encountering the materials.”
Tonight, using a crowbar to pull up section after section of linoleum, I thought about how this is true for work and art both. Always, when I work with my hands, I find myself right here, in the moment. My mind grows steady, in tandem with my hands.
When I let it, the work becomes a meditation. I find the right question in the nowness of the experience. The bare simplicity of wood and wall, of metal and adhesive define a narrative; clarify the answer.
When I was a teenager my father taught me how to use sledge hammer and ax; and also how to true a line, plumb a sink, and wire an outlet. Now, when I am working with my hands, he always feels nearby. He was the kind of man who could fix carburetor or a motherboard. He understood electrical wiring, and architecture; these were the hobbies he chose to stay grounded in a life full of spiritual pondering.
I feel lucky to be able to share this kind of work with the men of my life. Then, with my father. Now, with my husband, who is in every way exactly opposite from the exacting craftsman that my father was, but just as able with his hands.
Where words sometimes leave DH and I tangled when we try to talk about what we imagine for the house, working side by side is something we do well. This is our second renovation project, and together we own many tools.
We destroyed the last of the old kitchen cabinets today, throwing them into the huge metal dumpster we’ve rented. DH leaned up against the garage door, cheering as I swung the sledge hammer into the wood. The each crack echoed a little in of our quiet valley, where the only sounds were a few nuthatches calling from the tops of birch trees.
It felt good to wield an 8lb hammer. The hear the crack of the wood, to make it splinter. And it felt good to look up and see DH smiling, his face framed in dark tousled hair, backlit by the setting sun slipping over the edge of the hill the is now ours.
seed heads in a snowy meadow
ice from the spring water cistern in the field below the house
the woods at the edge of the upper field
the branches of an heirloom apple tree
spring cistern
our house, seen from the meadow below
Comments
23 Responses to “House work”
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January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:25 am
Love you!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:25 am
I hadn’t appreciated the size and landscape of your yard until I saw that last photo.
Wow.
As for writing, or any art, and need for immediacy: I find that I usually begin with an idea, but that more times than not, my end product is something entirely unexpected.
January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:35 am
I’m with Dani…I hadn’t realized how big your piece of New England is! Just curious, exactly how much land does your new home sit on? (’scuse the multiple ending prepositions…)
P.S. I think Bean should be given a little set of construction tools and made to earn his keep
January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:59 am
What a gorgeous place to live!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 3:05 am
That’s great that your Dad taught you so many handy skills and you can participate fully in renovating your home (which looks lovely - what a view!)
January 23rd, 2006 @ 3:36 am
Goodness, you seem to be living on an estate!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 9:28 am
I love when you share stories about your father– what a wonderful man.
And, you swing that sledgehammer, woman!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 10:37 am
Ha! You people are making it sound like I live, as Lizardek put it, on an estate! It is actually a fairly small house on 12 acres. Hope everyone’s curiosity is satisfied (Jillian!)
January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:25 pm
i am so happy for you
i come from a home of “constant renovation”
and have married a man who is
also going to be full of renovation ideas…
we knew when we bought a house,
it would be a “fixer-upper”
it does give you great satisfaction,
thats for certain
January 23rd, 2006 @ 12:44 pm
It will be a magical place for the Bean to grow tall and strong! Plenty of space to run and have adventures and camp out under the stars. And how great that you and the husband can work so nicely together - and that you know how to do so many handy things!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 3:07 pm
What a lovely place you have — and are making!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
your new book looks excellent. wonderful pics!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 4:37 pm
I am reminded of the Joni Mitchell lyric, “ I could drink a case of you” … and so I feel at reading your post tonight, so much of it resonates through so many disparate places in my lifestream. One example only, for the sake of space and time … The summer of 1983, in an olive press in the Tuscan village where Michelangelo quarried stone so long ago … An artist worked in the courtyard outside my door and I watched him one morning, and marveled at his life, working with his hands and his spirit, together in that living meditation, that perfect music of physical effort and production that has no equal in mans’ endeavors.
January 23rd, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
Your house and property seem lovely. Congratulations.
January 23rd, 2006 @ 6:10 pm
wow, what a gorgeous home. so excited to see how you make it your own!
January 23rd, 2006 @ 7:40 pm
I want to live in a house like yours one day. Only thing I’d add is a creek.
I don’t envy the cold, however.
January 23rd, 2006 @ 8:16 pm
I love the picture of the ice. Love it. Man, I wish my digital camera took better pictures.
Your home looks absolutely delicious, in that delicious-house kind of way.
January 23rd, 2006 @ 8:59 pm
Pip–there IS a creek!!
January 24th, 2006 @ 1:03 am
looks like such a lovely home - with so much fun ahead! lovely pictures too!
January 24th, 2006 @ 1:14 am
It is wonderful that you can be close to your dad as you work on your new home. And your house is just beautiful…
January 24th, 2006 @ 11:54 pm
beautiful! I love your house.
January 27th, 2006 @ 5:46 pm
I love the picture of the frozen water in the cistern - it seems like you could be taking the picture from above or beneath the surface looking up. Haunting.
January 28th, 2006 @ 11:11 am
I am in love with your house. It’s just lovely. Like something out of Anne of Green Gables. Bean will be lucky to grow up there!