After an aggravating day littered with work and personal irritations, I improved my mood mightily by forgetting everything but Tom for a few hours. We strolled around the corner and ate a beautiful meal at Woodford's bar--duck-liver pate, crab cakes, mussels--then wandered back home and cuddled up under the couch blanket and watched some very excellent World Series pitching by kids younger than our own children.
So now I feel I can enter the weekend without grouchiness. It's going to rain all day and into the night, and I've got a bunch of reading to do, plus the usual housework. And thank God, the construction guys have gone home for a couple of days. The road turmoil has been horrible, though also very distracting, as I have gotten obsessed by the genius skills of one particular backhoe operator. When the young men on the crew drive the backhoe, it's just a machine ripping up pavement. But when the genius drives it, the backhoe becomes an animal--delicately shifting small heaps of sand, burrowing tenderly into the asphalt, hoisting heavy sewer mains with the innate joy of its species. I keep wanting to rush out during coffee breaks and shake the driver's hand and exclaim about his brilliance. But of course I restrain myself. Nobody needs to be embarrassed by a crazy neighbor lady.
I discussed my fascination over dinner, and Tom agreed that some machine operators are indeed brilliant. And he mentioned a man at his job site, who is installing stainless-steel trim on an old stone house . . . fusing seams, cutting bolts, so that the final product is smooth and flawless and stunning. The masons and carpenters are open-mouthed in admiration.
Honey I’d split your kindling
clean & bright
& fine
if you was mine
[from Hayden Carruth's "Green Mountain Idyll"]
3 comments:
I watched a friend maneuver a yacht out of a tight winter resting place into a very small boatyard, and then turn it so it could be backed into the water. It was quite brilliant. To each of us our own gifts.
When they put in new sidewalks on my street they cut into my frontage and I ended up with an impossible step up to my front walk. I figured I was going to have to get someone in to create steps. Day after they finished the sidewalk the young woman who worked for the sidewalk company pulled up and set to work. I'd taken note of her ablities for weeks. She set about attacking my predicament and singled handedly in no time at all had crafted two lovely steps for me. By the time I was ready for work she was gone. Luckly there was another house down the street that had the same issue. I found her working there and stopped to thanked her.
I agree entirely; some people make otherwise awkward and cumbersome jobs look like fine art. I would extend this to sports, as well. I'm not a huge fan of basketball, but a perfectly executed layup can be a graceful form of movement, almost balletic. It's pretty zen, isn't it? When the doer and the doing are perfectly in synch, the result is beauty.
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