paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- as we can muster them Fence building, finally. This morning did not announce itself as particularly great for building a fence, but we had planned to work on the colossal project this weekend and so rain or sun we were headed outside with power drills, table saw, more boards to bore us, sooner rather than later, as we measured, cut, drilled, measured, cut, drilled..... A long day of searching for zen. Of getting lost in the moment, trying to drive the tan-colored deck screw into the board the best I can. I think about the concepts of building: level, strong, balanced. The idea of level, of having something outside of the self to determine whether a board is �level� in the atmosphere. Level has nothing to do with the ground � sometimes level looks slightly off when the ground slopes slightly less than the eye discerns, for example. Level is all about air and relationships. If the level is level and is in full contact with the board, then it follows that the board is level. I have completely naturalized building � I can think through what to do, but I don�t always know the terminology. But the concepts of good building built themselves into my brain and my thought process. I know things that I know I have not learned. This is the power of naturalized knowledge. So often I feel as though naturalized knowledge is negative � the stereotypes that we all sort through in our daily lives about what it means to be, for example, a woman, or to be part of a particular ethnic group, or to be in a certain socio-economic class. I think of this knowledge as negative and try to be aware of the small unintentional assumptions I make about people and places. The more I try to be aware, the more I discover that life refutes the norms more than it supports it. Even if only in small ways. My favorite example is when I watched the neighbors move in to the rental house across the street. A couple, in their twenties, covered with tattoos, being helped by 10 or so people, covered in tattoos also. Wild hair, tight jeans, ripped shirts. I admit, having been a bit of a wild person externally and having known plenty of wild people, I began immediately to mourn our peaceful block. But the tattooed people turned out to be lovely neighbors � friendly, quiet, conscientious parkers, kept the outside of their house picked up, etc. They also had great taste in music � I heard the English Beat on more than one occasion, as well as a variety of other fun stuff. So my assumption proved wrong. When the tattooed couple moved, Quinn and I were so sad. I think we said goodbye three times. I should have known better because I probably gave people that same sinking feeling when I moved onto their blocks in my younger years.... Perhaps there are some things that we just know which don�t have value judgements associated with them. Maybe one of them is how a level works. I learned the saying �half a bubble off plumb� years before I ever encountered a level. But as soon as I used my first level, I knew exactly how it worked. And I also understood the term �plumb crazy� in this new context. When someone is plumb crazy, they are completely aligned with crazy, their sprits are one with a crazy direction.... It makes me come to a new appreciation of cliches. Yes, they are turns of phrase that we use to be expressive, folksy, and maybe sometimes lazy. But they also have their knowledge. They teach us some useful information. But they also sometimes teach us damaging, hateful, harmful information. I have not been able to sort it out a way to differentiate the two, so I mention it.
When a person is not level, that is not desirable... what is level when it comes to a person? Someone who is level-headed. It is easy to list off the characteristics of the level-headed, but I never really stopped and tried to visualize level-headedness. If I return to the way children draw houses with faces, the way I drew houses with faces, I can begin to understand level-headedness. But it is interesting how connected sanity and sturdiness of mind is with building structures. One we can see the other we can only know or notice abstractly. At least, not without some way of observing how level someone�s head is, some tool like a level. Some way of isolating a buble of air in a thick liquid knowing that the bubble of air will always seek to center itself. Do people always seek to center themselves? These are my thoughts from a day of fence-building. Of working board by board with Quinn, slowly making progress towards our goal. Trying to stay centered, level-headed around the powerful table saw, among the drops of rain and the chill in the air. Sometimes I am riddled by the saying �peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old. Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Some like it in the pot nine days old.� But we probably shouldn�t eat it if it is ten days old? I�m enjoying the fence building, despite my boredom, because it is fun to get outside, fun to receive the reactions of neighbors. So many people commenting. The young single next door is as I type, charging up his drill so that Quinn and I can use it too. Ours runs out of steam, and sometimes we just need to have two going..... Who would think that a young guy with a beat up car would drop out of the art institute to get a job, be a good dad and take care of his daughter? The guy next door did. And when his daughter was a toddler and just teetering around on her tiny little feet, he would bend over at the waist, stick out his finger which she would grasp, and walk up and down the sidewalk in this funny pose, letting her have her steps as she could muster them. 12:18 a.m. - 2003-05-25 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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