Letters To An
Overseas Friend.

There may or may not be a post or series of posts coming that discuss the making of things out of wood using steel. This/these posts would include moments of discovery that apply not only to woodworking. But for now, I will say this:

I find sanding a wood product nearing its completion is the step that is least stimulating, least stirring, least exciting, least instructive, perhaps least necessary, and most anticlimactic. If more spoon carving is in my future, I might anticipate a small and eventually abandoned pile of mostly finished but un-sanded spoons. Why? I think sanding a spoon is like eating a cake you baked. It’s pretty much a “fait accompli,” aka. an accomplished fact. A banality. Boredom. There are no real surprises to eating a cake. It might taste good, it might taste bad, and the flavour and texture may surprse you. But the action is as straight forward as it gets. Assuming the cake is edible, eating it is a done deal and you know what eating a cake looks like. Ah, but assuming the cake will be edible is no safe assumption. The alchemy you preform before the eating of your first cake WAS indistinguishable from magic: A modern microcosm of a pioneer’s adventure in technology that has always been a black box to you. Many of the steps of cake construction can be the activity equivalent of “That’s how you do that? And it works?!”

I go on about this because there’s an idea that you and I have touched upon a few times that is becoming more clear and concrete than just an idea to me. And that is, sometimes you do things to have a fine finished product and sometimes you do things just to feel doing it and one can prohibit the other. I think we can benefit greatly from the presence of both modes working in some kind of sym-bio-existence. Good process leads to results, but I’m taking more seriously the idea that positive results lead to better process.

I don’t make spoons to have a beautiful and functional spoon. You can buy much better versions of those, and in terms of beauty or accomplishment, I don’t think the spoons I make are much to write home or to England about, although I do enjoy working on them. But given my penchant for doing things just to do it with total disregard for the end product (drawings never intended for viewing, spoons that no one use, etc…) I never actually finish anything. This might be a problem. The goal might hinder the path* but over-embracing the path might never get you anywhere.

So I sand these spoons. As much as I don’t want to.


*Or to put it more another way, sometimes you don’t take the steps to get to a destination because you worry to much about success. This might be a legitimate worry and perhaps it is wise to not embark on the first place, but how does one make that distinction? And/or you keep both eyes on the prize but you don’t keep one on the road.

The other day I bought an onion from one of my go to grocers in Chinatown. The intention wasn’t to pick up a lone onion, but after looking over the freshness of the other items on my list, I decided the onion was the only thing that I actually needed that evening.

At the cashier, the onion came to 22 cents. I paid with a quarter. I was given a nickel for change. Remember, we have abolished the penny, so the onion’s cost got rounded down. This seemed unfair to me. Due to a federal currency policy, I had paid only 91% of the cost of the onion. Actually, what it really felt like was that I was given back 1/11 or roughly 10% of my entire bill. Yes, this is all ridiculous and it didn’t take me long to reset myself to the proper perspective. But something instinctual happened, didn’t it? I had automatically picked out the proportional details of the transaction, rather than than looking at the discreet units, which was 2 cents.

Enough onions will get rounded up (say a slightly larger onion costing 23 cents) to even out this effect, too. There is nothing unfair about a 22 cent onion.

On vestigial parts: The finger is fully functional now. A little stiff, less so weak, and vaguely soar if articulated or pressed the wrong way. But typing feels the same as ever. Eating also. Buttoning pants and doing up zippers are back to normal. Most activities except, and there’s a theme developing…

Buttoning shirts and tying shoelaces. For these two actions, The finger and some part of my brain autonomously but tenderly lift the finger back to keep it out of harm’s way, as if it’s still wrapped up and half-severed. Why?

I think one interesting detail sets these two things apart from the before mentioned tasks: I do these two things somewhat often but not regularly, as opposed to pants that go on everyday. I also operate eating utensils and a keyboard everyday and several times each day. But buttoned shirts are uncommon (once a week?) and, these summer days, I usually wear shoes without laces. In contrast, these two tasks were performed more often in the cooler climate during the height of the injury*. It seems to me that, post-wrap removal, through necessity and repetition, the finger was fully integrated on some tasks ASAP, but, through a lack of need and infrequency of task, the finger is yet to be re-conditioned for other activities.

In everything I do, I hope to exercise thought and intention. But it’s not hard to find microcosms of how a good chunk of my day is performed via conditioning. These are small tasks for sure. But what about larger ones? What of my treatment of and reactions to people? See, you got me thinking about kindness, Thomas.


*If not buttoning a shirt, then buttoning a jacket.