Wanted: Blood, Sweat, and Tears
Rather listen to this blog post instead?
There’s just something about working with your hands.
Especially when you’ve been too long working with your fingers.
When day in day out you’ve been tip tapping away on screens and keyboards, it is a soulfully welcome departure to do a bit of carpentry or construction (or destruction for that matter).
Hammers and saws and sanders and stain. I’ll be damned if I ever go desking again.
Soft and Silly Wimps
For any lady or gent that read the above and scoffed at the softness of us modern laptopian careerists, I get it–we’re silly wimps. On one hand, it’s ridiculous to be surprised that hard physical labor fulfills a special part of the human soul (we’ve got more idioms about “a hard day’s work” than Eskimos have words for snow). And on the other, it’s painfully clear how privileged one must be to have a revelation like this: “Deary me, how tiresome this air-conditioned, work-from-anywhere, internet-money has become. I really could do with a spot of true labor. Ah, but alas…I live in a high-rise condo and have not the tools nor callouses required to indulge in ’labor’.”
All that aside, I will still craft a consideration about the benefits of adding a laborious hobby to a life of laptop tippy tapping.
Because I am surely not the only silly wimp that needs it.
The Backstory
Act 1 – Paradise Not
The year was 2017 and I had just returned from an England/Norway travel. As usual when I would visit Norway, it would be the non-vacation leg of trip. The first part of the travels would be all about going new places, eating strange things, and relaxing. The Norway portion was where I would settle into the 6:00pm – 12:00am daily schedule and plug back into work.
I did not like this schedule. I do not like trying to enjoy my day before I put work in. I like to work hard first, and then enjoy myself after all responsibilities have been squared away. I’ve experimented quite a bit with the arranging and rearranging of my schedule, and this is where I’ve landed; work first, play later.
I tried my best to enjoy my mornings and afternoons before work, but I still needed just a slice of play to wedge between work and bedtime to feel like I was rewarding completed work with subsequent play.
Conveniently, at 12:00am in the Norway summertime the sun has only just set, and there is plenty of dusk to enjoy. Doubly convenient is that the boathouse I stayed in sat right on a fjord enabling me to cast directly off the dock. The fish never didn’t bite. Glorious.
And that was the schedule, and it was weird.
This schedule, along with some strange and stressful client dynamics at the time, created a nice swirling soup of discontentment. Even with the delightful midnight fishing, I couldn’t quite overcome.
A special hell this was; to see the beauty and know grace about me, yet be unable to feel and appreciate it. An ambrosia tasting of ash. A major bummer.
Act 2 - The Revelation
All of these considerations were still with me when on the way home from the airport, a song came on the radio that I had never heard before. The very first lyrics I heard:
I woke up this morning
Didn't recognize the man in the mirror
Then I laughed and I said, "Oh silly me, that's just me”
Prior to the song being played, I could not have articulated my discontentment. After the song played, I knew precisely what I was dealing with:
I was in a digital rut, and my hands-on creativity had withered on the vine. Being a maker is who I am, and I had not made (in the physical sense) in a long time. I didn’t recognize myself.
And the clarity kept coming:
I saw a Dwell Magazine at the grocery store I stopped at. I bought it.
I went to Office Max and got foam-core board, a glue stick, and scissors.
I would’ve started crafting as soon as I got home, but I’d been up for 36 hours and though it was 6:00pm Portland time, it was bedtime.
I woke up that next morning, and I slightly resembled the man in the mirror. Progress.
I caught the sunrise on a hike that morning, having risen fully rested at 4:00am like a lunatic, and took a wonderful picture of the city at first light from the top of a mountain. The inspiration was beginning to boil. More progress.
I must’ve spent the whole rest of the day working on my collage–leisurely reading every page of the Dwell Magazine, snipping out photos of architecture and interiors I thought beautiful, pasting them perfectly on the board. By the end, the magazine looked like piranha lunch; pages skeletal and stripped of all good meat.
It was a masterpiece collage. Fit for a posterboard-on-easel presentation at a 1950’s Madison Ave. ad agency.
Last time I made a collage was 3rd grade.
I was just flowing. I had no plans. I was not consciously crafting a vision board, or curating elements of a dream home. I was just letting myself be pulled along.
I had realized that my life lacked physical craft, and I had been given a good double shot of the juice its fruit bled out. I was determined to keep squeezing and bottle as much as possible.
Act 3 - The Application
It wasn’t a month before the opportunity to apply this spontaneous vision presented itself. Mom had sold her rental property in Tucson, AZ and was looking to buy another here in Portland.
And she wanted my help.
It was quickly decided that instead of buying another rental property, we would build a proper tiny home.
This checked so many boxes:
Physical crafting and hard blood-spilling and sweat-inducing labor
Application of the architecture and interiors vision board collage thingy
Help mom with passive AirBnB based income for her retirement
Lay the foundation for MY early retirement and AZ <—> OR snowbirding dreams
And so it happened. We prepped the foundation, built the home, installed the electrical, dug the septic, ran the water, and banged our heads against the minisplit AC until it bent the knee and swore fealty to us.
By the end of it my boots were ruined, my hand was sprained, but it looked f***ing good. The pride of HGTV, hands f***ing down.
And our pride as well.
The Conclusion
When our first guest completed their stay, and their money and glowing 5-star review had been received, I reflected–I could not recall a time when I had been happier, more fulfilled, and more exhausted. I had my answer to the laptopian tippy tapping:
Do. More. Of. This.
I was renewed. Even my computer work felt refreshing. It wasn’t that I needed to rip myself away from the screen for life. I just needed a stronger cocktail with some new ingredients, chief among them physical craft.
The beauty of this physical-craft-needing conclusion is that there is still a wide range of activities to choose from that fit the bill.
Here are 13 physical crafts I enjoy:
I sketch on paper with pens
I model with small bits of clay
I design and build wood furniture
I paint my walls
I print and frame art I love
I tend to small herb gardens
I obsess over large houseplants
I pick and vase local flowers
I reupholster pillows
I paint (sometimes)
I handwrite letters to old friends
I cook using very sharp knives and very expensive pans
I rearrange my living space (too often)
To this day I pull from this list. Maybe you can too?
As always, I hope my suffering prevents some of yours. May your path be laden less with the hurdles I have…hurdled. And may we ALL not only find the meaning of life and discover the secret to happiness and fulfillment but distribute it far and wide and free of charge to all.
Amen, yeehaw, and namaste.
THE END
Your Turn:
What can you add to the list? What are your favorite physical crafts? Could be both short duration hobbies and meaty projects alike. Share in the comments below!
Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash
