highway, never leaking, never lighting on fire, and never falling apart under the weight of all my worldly possessions. What was I thinking?
I’m certain I’d have felt less intimidated if I’d been acarpenter instead of an office worker and inspector; my ability to locate oil drums hidden in the blackberry bushes wasn’t necessarily going to help me see the subtle twist in a stick of lumber—the sort of curl that could throw everything off in the roof. But I understood there had to be something innate about building. It had to be in my genetic composition; something from my ancestors who struggled to make thatch and bog mud into a workable roof. Some part of me had to know how to build, just like you know how to blow on hot food before popping it in your mouth.
Early in life, I’d felt drawn to building, pinching little blankets to furniture and erecting forts made out of hay bales. I have a vivid memory of being about four years old and my dad wrapping his big hand around mine as we held the saw. Together we would cut boards, his body doing all the hard work, and my determination believing it was all me. Decades later, I remember doing the same thing with my niece and nephew, as we built little A-frame birdhouses for their mom.
In middle school, I drew floor plans of the tree house my dad and I would build. In high school I took woodshop, where I made my mom a lovely set of salad tongs, and in college I studied architectural engineering. I was fascinated by building, but rarely had a chance to practice the craft. It wasn’t until I owned my own house that I was finally able to learn how to feed wood through a table saw, operate a nail gun, and figure out how to handle a Skilsaw.
I learned by working with real carpenters, people like my friend Katy, who seemed to know what a piece of wood was thinking. Our first project together was making kayaks—the boats that I had set up in my unfinished living room, and the project that would teach me to trust my eye when it came to hand-planing the rails and putting the finishing coat of varnish on the shell. Katy taught me how to operate a Sawzall, a pointy power tool that you hold like a machine gun and use to cut open the walls of your house when you want to install new French doors, and she showed me how to look for corkscrews in the wood that you’re culling from the lumberyard.
My friend Peety taught me how to watch for rot or beetle bores when you’re picking through wood at the salvage yard. He and I worked together on a plumbing project, and I ended up with a fairly fantastic crush on him because of the way he’d giggle when he was pissed; like when he got pinned in a weird position in the attic, in just such a way that he had to jam his head between the rafters right where the spiders had stowed their eggs, and then he chortled and said, “If I die from spider bites, you can have the fifty-seven cents in my pocket.”
I had a first date once that involved making a kitchen countertop. We worked together as we fed wood through a table saw, with me catching the freshly cut lumber as it exited past the blade and cooing over how much fun this was (and it really was). That was the nature of my education—helpful friends and hot dates—which wasn’t enough to make me a carpenter.
As I walked home from the trailer shop, I wished I were a carpenter. I wanted to walk along and shake the sawdust out of my pants cuffs, and to contemplate the pros and cons of a compound miter saw versus a simple chop saw (they look an awful lot alike). I wanted to feel confident, like my future was in good hands . . . not my own.
I was chewing my lip and staring into the small window of space directly in front of my eyes, when a movement across the street caught my attention. It was a lady and a little boy handing sheets of plywood up to a guy on the second story of a newly constructed house frame. It looked dangerous; the lady had a skirt on (a definite tripping hazard that made
I’m certain I’d have felt less intimidated if I’d been acarpenter instead of an office worker and inspector; my ability to locate oil drums hidden in the blackberry bushes wasn’t necessarily going to help me see the subtle twist in a stick of lumber—the sort of curl that could throw everything off in the roof. But I understood there had to be something innate about building. It had to be in my genetic composition; something from my ancestors who struggled to make thatch and bog mud into a workable roof. Some part of me had to know how to build, just like you know how to blow on hot food before popping it in your mouth.
Early in life, I’d felt drawn to building, pinching little blankets to furniture and erecting forts made out of hay bales. I have a vivid memory of being about four years old and my dad wrapping his big hand around mine as we held the saw. Together we would cut boards, his body doing all the hard work, and my determination believing it was all me. Decades later, I remember doing the same thing with my niece and nephew, as we built little A-frame birdhouses for their mom.
In middle school, I drew floor plans of the tree house my dad and I would build. In high school I took woodshop, where I made my mom a lovely set of salad tongs, and in college I studied architectural engineering. I was fascinated by building, but rarely had a chance to practice the craft. It wasn’t until I owned my own house that I was finally able to learn how to feed wood through a table saw, operate a nail gun, and figure out how to handle a Skilsaw.
I learned by working with real carpenters, people like my friend Katy, who seemed to know what a piece of wood was thinking. Our first project together was making kayaks—the boats that I had set up in my unfinished living room, and the project that would teach me to trust my eye when it came to hand-planing the rails and putting the finishing coat of varnish on the shell. Katy taught me how to operate a Sawzall, a pointy power tool that you hold like a machine gun and use to cut open the walls of your house when you want to install new French doors, and she showed me how to look for corkscrews in the wood that you’re culling from the lumberyard.
My friend Peety taught me how to watch for rot or beetle bores when you’re picking through wood at the salvage yard. He and I worked together on a plumbing project, and I ended up with a fairly fantastic crush on him because of the way he’d giggle when he was pissed; like when he got pinned in a weird position in the attic, in just such a way that he had to jam his head between the rafters right where the spiders had stowed their eggs, and then he chortled and said, “If I die from spider bites, you can have the fifty-seven cents in my pocket.”
I had a first date once that involved making a kitchen countertop. We worked together as we fed wood through a table saw, with me catching the freshly cut lumber as it exited past the blade and cooing over how much fun this was (and it really was). That was the nature of my education—helpful friends and hot dates—which wasn’t enough to make me a carpenter.
As I walked home from the trailer shop, I wished I were a carpenter. I wanted to walk along and shake the sawdust out of my pants cuffs, and to contemplate the pros and cons of a compound miter saw versus a simple chop saw (they look an awful lot alike). I wanted to feel confident, like my future was in good hands . . . not my own.
I was chewing my lip and staring into the small window of space directly in front of my eyes, when a movement across the street caught my attention. It was a lady and a little boy handing sheets of plywood up to a guy on the second story of a newly constructed house frame. It looked dangerous; the lady had a skirt on (a definite tripping hazard that made
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