Mutter

If I don’t have projects, I think I’ll die.

Probably not literally. Probably. The reality is, though, that I need to be constantly moving towards some goal or I get depressed. And they can’t just be school projects, although those are numerous, interesting, and generally quite satisfying, but if school projects are all I am doing, I get depressed. I think the depression is a symptom, partially, of sitting too much, and although I have not been employed for over a year and a half, I’m still a tradesman, and tradesmen need to be doing things with their hands like yard work, or tinkering, or just generally puttering around and getting shit accomplished.

For a few months now, I have been doing yard work for an elderly fellow who pays me what I’m worth to help him keep his yard kept up with. I rake leaves, and other tree litter, mow the lawns, clean the gutters, make new paths, move garden beds, burn large piles of yard waste, and whatever various needs he may have that are better suited to a younger body, and I love it. He loves it too, it gives him more time to build odd furniture, fix leaky hoses, and work in his large collection of garden beds and his greenhouse. When I break something, like his ancient shovel handles, or when I put the lawn mower on it’s side to scrape out the gunk collected on the undercarriage and fill the cylinders with crankcase oil, he’s literally more than happy to fix these things for me/us, because it also feels good to be part of a team.

Occasionally, our paths cross in such a way that we share a few words, and, in the way of men, always more is said than is said until something significant is just simply said. He’s got too many garden beds, and it’s hard for him to keep up with all the work, and are you a gardener, and do you like tomatoes/snap peas/carrots, and do you know anyone with a pear tree so I can get some pollen to pollinate mine, because I used to know someone with a pear tree, and I used to give my extra vegetable to my neighbour, but their dead now. That’s what sucks about getting old, you’ve got no friends, all my friends have died. And I tell him that I do, in fact like tomatoes and snap peas very much, and maybe Hez knows someone with a pear tree, and I’ll ask her to come by some time (she did, and he thinks she’s a sweetheart), and I’m really happy to be able to come over and work because it gets me away from my computer and school, which I love, but it gets pretty overwhelming if I don’t take a break from it and go outside and do some work, and I left all my friends behind, and I’m afraid to make new ones, because I don’t feel like I have the time, and I fear my past, and I fear my pain, and it’s really nice to be a part of something with clearly defined goals and outcomes, and to putter and mutter and matter and swear and speak of plans and tools and dirt in the language of men. It’s the only one I know.
I was having so much fun doing yard work that I would come home and do it after work. I cleaned up a ton, and had several huge fires, but it’s now time to let things grow out for the summer, and let the bank that I made out of yard waste settle....and catch up on my school work. My own work, work that I chose to do as opposed to the work that I have to do, is addictive. I lose time, and I miss classes, and I think that I’ll just finish this and then I’ll go smash out an assignment before bed, but it’s not grade school, it’s creating a new life, and it requires dogged pursuit and discipline. I cannot just get by with innate smarts and a carefree attitude, I have to study, I have to get uncomfortable, and read dull material, and go window shopping for light fixtures, and design a residential high-rise, and I can’t rely on my experience with building too much because the industry is evolving, and that is what I need to do, too.

But I’ve got a few home projects on the go, and they’re the kind of thing that I can walk away from and back to when I need to get out for an hour or so. I made some drop pads out of plywood and rubber mats so that I can practice olympic weight-lifting without trashing my shoulders by trying to control the bar on the way down. Now I can do snatches and over head squats, and clean and jerks, and just drop the bar onto the pads so that the weights don’t make giant disk-edge holes in the lawn. Also the power rack and farmer’s carry handles that I fabricated a few years ago, and that I wanted to keep that beautiful bare-steel colour, rusted, and so I cleaned them all up, and I have been painting them up with truck bed liner, and the rack looks pretty bad-ass. I clear-coated the farmer’s carry handles because I REALLY love the way they look, but we’ll see how they do next winter. Hopefully they won’t rust up again, but if they do, well, I always need something to do.