The Comforts of Life: Recent Episodes
rosemary
I believe that we all need to feel the comforts of life. A kind of comfort that surrounds us and helps us know what’s real and needed. And fills us with a rare abundance that focuses on what we see where we are. Not the fantastic. Not the expensive. Not the wants. Just the simple things that flow through our fingers and our lives. Comfort filling the needs that we have so that you know that I care about you. And I know that you care about me. Just a story and thought.
My husband is a carpenter. We live in a Treehouse. In our backyard which overlooks the edge of a hundred-acre wood, we have placed to the left and just beyond our garden, a lovely small bird feeder. The pole rises from the ground, bending over to form a shepherd’s crook from which the rubbed bronze platform hangs. My husband and I love to watch the cardinals and house finches swoop and eat, diving from the surrounding hackberry trees in an arboreal ballet. And sometimes, they come close and call to us to fill the feeder they empty so quickly.
One day in late afternoon, a hawk gently, stealthfully landed on the crook above the feeder. Positioned there, he looked huge, as big as the feeder. He had obviously been watching our beautiful birds with an eye more for dinner than dance.
The lack of subtlety was not lost on us. Did that hawk suppose he blended? Did he think our carefree birds would think, ah well, new friend in the neighborhood? Or, as my husband noted, late in the day, blistering hot, that hawk was looking for an easy meal.
But it never works. No cardinal swooped in. No finch twittered by. No squirrel came to clean up under the feeder. Nothing.
The easy way. Oh, if only...
We’d all be at the top of everything. Perfect weight. Perfect shape. All projects done in a snap. We’d be everything we know we could be. We’d have everything we know we should have.
But it never works...
Not even if we’re desperate.
Not even if we just dream and wait.
Not even if you’re at the top of the food chain, you still need to work hard and work well to get what you want out of life.
And really, we build our value by working hard so that at the end of a day we can find that comfort and strength from our own hands and our own minds.
“To stand square, a carpenter cannot miss any step. The measure. The cut. The assembly.
Each point builds the structure that’s strong and useful and true and will stand the test of time.”
--Aaron Jackson, Master Carpenter
Building through the Good and the Bad
My husband is a carpenter.
We live in a Treehouse.
We also have a carpentry shop that’s filled with the wafting warm scent of freshly cut wood and gagging sprayed lacquer. Sometimes you walk into the shop and breathe. Breathe deeply that soft aroma of milled maple. Sometimes you walk into the shop and the overwhelming, pungent odor of freshly sprayed toxic chemicals rams up your nostrils and you’re out of there fast. It’s not nice. The same place. But oh, so different.
Liking this. Not liking that.
We live in a shell of bias. Liking this. Not liking that.
And when we die, I like to think that part of the shell dies too and what is left is the beautiful, so-beautiful, shell we’ve created.
Like that of a discarded cocoon. One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. So are our bodies, so is life.
What would that mean?
Would a strongly judgmental or a crazily tolerant life have built the better cocoon?
Are the attributes we develop in this shell of bias really things we want to keep?
Why do we have particular characteristics if it isn’t to be for something or against another thing? And there it is that shell of bias. What are we for? What are we against? Can we use our biases to build our person? Or do we need to leave them behind and build off something else?
Yes, I think so. The shop is always the shop. A place that can embrace. A place that can push you away. The purpose of the shop is to build not to be evaluated on a moment-by-moment basis.
Biases do that to us.
We like one minute. We don’t like the next. That soul we want to create. That beautiful soul lives with an understanding of purpose not bias. What are we here to do? Then let’s do it. Building past the bias of liking this or not liking that. Building to the purpose of life. Building a beautiful soul with what we like and what we don’t. No bias. Building becomes a comfort of life and we live in its beautiful purpose.
We are the beautiful butterfly...
“To create a cabinet that will last a lifetime, use quality wood
and a strong, tough lacquer.
Then, that build is everlasting.”
--Aaron Jackson, Master Carpenter
My husband is a carpenter. We live in a Treehouse. My husband makes cabinets for a living. He makes amazing cabinets that can do anything, be anywhere. Because he is my husband, he makes me cabinets almost whenever I need them. Cabinets with glass fronts and inlaid colored panels reflecting the lights behind and showing off my treasures. Cabinets with long dramatic doors that open to my collections not of anything in particular but everything I’ve found and wanted and have.
I have a home full of cabinets, built-ins, that look tidy and organized. And are. Everything is organized. I have organized so many things, I don’t always remember what I have. But its there if I remember and if I need it.
Then my husband started adding drawers to each cabinet shelf so I could access those items lost to the dark recesses that can’t be reached or easily seen. Gradually I realized that I didn’t need to keep those things that had lost their usefulness or were in tired disrepair and had been stuffed behind. I pulled them out and instantly felt lifted to a new level of organization.
One that didn’t stuff.
One that didn’t hang onto anything but the treasures. The drawers revealed my clutter. The drawers released my spirit.
And so it goes. What do you need to release? What are you hanging onto that doesn’t need to be organized in your cabinets over and over again? When you put in those drawers take the time to sift through and never sift again. Your cabinets and your mind are your resource for all that goes on in your home and your life. Then bring in those things that comfort you and build your spirit. Resource in your drawers the treasures that bring you clarity of thought and reveal the comforts of your life.
“The best drawers use a soft-close glide so that you can access your things easily and then put them away with a simple, gentle motion.”
--Aaron Jackson, Master Carpenter
My husband is a carpenter. We live in a Treehouse. That home sits on the edge of a forest glen filled with coyotes and armadillos and raccoons and deer and birds and squirrels and ferns that sneak into the small spaces. There is a certain glory to living on the edge of nature and not having to be right there with all the other animals that share our life—mosquitoes and spiders and creepy crawly bugs. We can watch the beauty and experience the inconveniences in a minor way.
Our forest is filled with hackberry tress. I have been told that hackberries are not very desirable or sought after trees. However, I love them. In a stirring breeze when other trees rustle and bend, hackberries wag. Each limb becomes a happy puppy dog's tail. A tree full of wagging happiness.
I love it. There are so many things I love. It’s better to know the things you love than the things you hate. And sometimes that love is just a stirred feeling, a gentle breeze, or the touch of a warm ray of sunlight making it's way through the trees canopy.
Something you know.
Something you always want there.
Like a tree full of wagging happiness. I feel that way about the Treehouse I always want it here. I feel that way about my husband, I always want him near, like the trees in a forest, there forever.
These are my comforts of life.
The simple truths.
The simple pieces that we pull together to give each day a reason and each moment a joy. I live in these comforts and grow in their warm embrace.
“When you want to cut a straight line, you need a guide to help you create and follow that line.
Otherwise, you can’t stay true.”
--Aaron Jackson, Master Carpenter