|
7 & 1/2 Acres |
2002-10-12 - 10:56 a.m. So I didn't sleep well last night and was awake at about 4:30 and got about this close to getting here to post an entry. Sleep eventually won out but ah rain. For me, in my profession where ninety percent of my work is outside, rain means a guilt free day off. Last Fall when I was in school I skipped a day of class in order to work with my neighbor, Mr. William. He has a Bobcat and I climb trees so we tried teaming up and it worked out really well--we've been doing various jobs together since. After we finished the job he was helping me on, we made a detour while we were that way so I could help him pick some boards up at a local lumber yard. We finished these tasks and were heading home--it was still early in the day and as we drove down the road, him in one truck towing his Bobcat and me in another following behind, I couldn�t help but feel so good. It was this momentary feeling without any analysis or much awareness except for feeling the feeling. It felt so good to not be in class but outside, doing this kind of work, driving down the road, going home with it still early. I experience a similar feeling sometimes when I�m in a tree and I swing to a spot and drop a limb that�s in a tight situation. perhaps with a nice azalea directly underneath that I don�t want to crush--a fence to the other side--with my cuts and quick calculations the limb creaks to one side, cracks and falls right where I wanted it. What I love most is when I am consumed--this word implies used up but for me I mean more awash. I love when I am awash in my work, be it climbing trees or working on our house or in my art--when the task at hand demands all of my attention so much so that I am unaware of myself in the act and time, am just doing the act except then perhaps for this momentary glimpse of knowing that I love what I am doing--this is what feels good. This entry is about work I guess. I love to drive a truck careful like through a field to go dump a load of wood or brush. There has to be a purpose here--for so easily I hate to drive off road. I love it when I am working high in a tree and the fear�s edge has softened and I have become comfortable with my distance from the ground and am able to work. I love short trees. Maples that are easy to climb. I was in a Magnolia tree the other day which was fun. I raised the crown and for a bit there every move I made was to cut a limb--was to progress with my objective and I couldn�t help but be efficient. I was in another Magnolia one time climbing with only my harness mostly so I�d have a place to hook my saw. I wasn�t roped in. I heard this buzzing in my ear and I swat at it but it wouldn�t go away. I took off my hat to swat but then my head alit afire and I thought for two seconds before I leapt from the tree. It was probably a twenty foot fall but made crashing though all the lower branches which slowed my decent and allowed me to hit the ground running. I must of been stung 7 or 8 times on the top of my skull. My friend who was working there with me but was out of sight said he heard this quick yell and then a loud and long crash. When he saw me running around the house headed straight for the hose he figured what had happened. All of this, I loved. Wouldn�t want to repeat it but I loved that it happened. I loved working with the aforementioned friend. He was the best person I�ve ever worked with in the trees. I trusted him wholly and respected him if he suggested we back off and bite smaller on huge jobs. He irked me when we were working a job near the university and he was doing some showing off in front of folks we knew--but then I show off too and so I can now smile at this. He worked hard and paused for smokes. He left my tools out in the rain and boy though I didn�t show it, that made me mad. He got poison ivy something fierce--I mean disabling amounts of it where your whole body swells. He also got kidney stones though we feared it was a hernia as it was a heavy heavy red oak we were wrestling. I love friends who I work with. The real friends I mean. You find out quick when doing tree work because the work quickly whoops any energy for politeness out of you. If you�re really friends, you�ll get through it for the better and have some cash in your pocket to boot. If you�re not, no matter the cash in your pocket, you�ll be cursing each other�s names and ready to brawl with your last bit of strength. It�s come from me and it�s come from others--I�m not trying to imply that I�m not guilty here too. Nowadays I�m often a beat behind. I�m partnering most often with a gentleman who has worked the farm way. All knowing comes from doing and there is little verbal communication or explanation involved. There�s the task at hand and he sets off in one way and I�m left to puzzle it together and try to anticipate what his next move is going to be so that I can be there too with the needed shovel to help dig out the spot for the collection box for the drainage pipe we�re putting in or the needed next cut on the downed pine we�re cleaning up. I love the days when this is in sync and I get it right but I also love the days when it�s not because I�m learning. I�m almost always amazed at how much knowing is involved when you�ve spent your life farming as Mr. William has (I was impressed again the other day when he was telling me to add linseed oil to paint to help its elasticity and adherence. How many MFA painters did I know that didn�t know this I wondered). The days I�m not amazed with his kind of knowing are usually because I�m frustrated and impatient with a rhythm that is completely efficient and necessary to the task at hand--and I�m too blind and ignorant to see it.
I�m learning that these things that I love are also my profession. This is what I am learning how to spend my life doing. I have spent so much time in school, doing things that I did not love (completely by my own choice) that I think it will take me quite some time to be comfortable and confident that the thing I do in this world are the things that I love--and that that is a contribution.
|