Working in Metaphor (6S X 3)

[Cita]

The metaphors are rampant as I move through my early summer, as the days warm up to the 90s, as the water fades down into the sand, as the garden lushes through the afternoons.

I put on old clothes and gather my tools, mainly a stiff wire brush to knock off the bird poop, a can of Regal Red, a mitt that starts out light as air and gets heavier with each dip.

The more paint on the mitt, the easier the job, the faster I can run my hand down the pipe, the more dramatic the results.

The dog follows me, napping in the shade, wearing red drips on her fur for two weeks.

The tranformation glistens behind me as I leave section after section of pipe corrals with a fresh coat, a face lift, a stronger defense against wind and sun and rain and snow.

It is pretty. 

 

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It is a noxious invasive weed, taking over the bright green productive bottoms, choking out the grasses, spreading its needle seeds for next year, a wonder of evolution.

Surely I can walk through the meadow with my hoe and chop each seedling as it springs up.

Surely three of us can walk through the meadow with hoes and get the job done.

Surely two of us can use hand sprayers to kill the mo fo.

So now there is a 26 gallon sprayer on the quad, and we've got a scortched earth policy regading yellow starthistle, thank you California.

Its back to just  me and my hoe, walking through the meadow, taking out the tenatious ones.

 

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Visitors notice it first, the old white house, vacant for many years except for the birds that fly out of broken windows, pack rats that nest in the insulation, the dirt dobbers building under the eaves, maybe a lizard on the windowsill.

The lumber is all good, worthy of saving, worthy of stacking out of the weather, worthy of dreaming.

I wear gloves and a nail apron and learn to use the sawhorses, hammer, flat bar, pry bar, skill saw, and impact wrench (most fun), not to build but to dismantle, destroy, deconstruct, pull the nails and save the wood for our someday house.

The blue bucket is slowly filling with nails while the flatbed is slowly filling with lumber, good lumber, strong full-dimension lumber. 

More than the tools, I am learning to use leverage, work with the job and not against it, discovering my own strength, my own ability to dream of my own house, someday, that no one can take away.

I am tearing down the old with you, and we sit in the shade with a beer and talk about the building of the new.

 

 

 

 

[deanna dickinson mccall]

You brought out some excellent points in 3. Funny thing is lately, the roles have reversed for me. Being a woman who can use tools, who has worked like a man, I also have found ways to make up for that lack of strength. I am now showing these things to my injured husband, how to do accomplish a chore w/o brute strength or skill.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

Cita, you are my kind of gal. I have never paid anyone to do something that I can learn how to do myself.

[Cita]

To those of you who are fans of the last one, I have to say that I don't think that many people, women in particular, get a chance to really learn how to use tools... hand tools, power tools.  We have become so specialized in our nation (cue the Wendell Berry music), that we hire someone to pound a nail, even bring us firewood, or dig in the dirt.  This opportunity to learn to use an impact wrench (genius!), and salvage Douglas fir 2X4s that are in pristine condition, dreaming of making something for US later on (this from the girl who has never lived longer than 5 years in one place... ever), is very exciting, challenging emotionally, and physically satisfying.  My partner has taught me to do a lot of things in the past 2.5 years, but one day when he was in Afghanistan, I was trying to change a hose bib in the yard and couldn't get the coupler off.  But I remembered how he always puts things in the vise in the shop and that then I could get some leverage.  And it worked.  There is EMPOWERMENT in knowing how to do things, which tools to use, and knowing it isn't about physical strength.  It is about understanding physics and which tools do what best.

[Diana E. Backhouse]

I join the number 3 fan club, but loved them all.

[Angela]

Enjoyed all three of these lovely vignettes.  One thing I treasure about your writing is its immediacy.

[Mike Handley]

I identify most with No.3 as well. I can't pass a forgotten home without feeling sad. I see what it was, is and could be, and I want the before-and-after gratification.

[Teresa]

As I read I thought of Anais Nin and Joan Didion.  I don't know why.  There are writers who step out on the ledge or plank and never worry about what lies below and that is you.  A real writer.  Fearless and the only level worth aspiring to.  Continue on... 

[Dude A Bydes]

Three times good. Favorite is nombre trois (sorry, practicing my French). I think I've been  a "dirt dobber" myself especially when trying to scare away those skank-birds that get in my soffets. Whoever said a bird in the home was a good omen? Dreams and homes do require routine maintenance to endure... don't they?

-Dude