things i think about every day

Mock-up & materials

The cardboard mock-up was larger than what I decided on building. There was a lot of back and forth. Below is the pear. The material was easier to decide on, though the trick was finding enough of it. 

Doweled case

The cabinet case is doweled. The little maple block in front is the doweling jig I made to line up the drill bit for the joints. I also made a scale plan view drawing to check the layout of the dowel holes. Despite being a smaller version of the mock-up, the cabinet still fits the tiniest Moleskine!

Prototype

I'm building a prototype in cherry (bottom) alongside the actual project. I've routed grooves in the cherry case to accept sliding doors, so I'm sure of my set up and technique for the real piece. The pear (top) proceeds in parallel with things I don't need to sort out via prototype, including the rabbet to accept the back panel and French cleat. 

Sliding door grooves

The grooves are stopped under the cabinet sides, which gives me 7/16" of margin. Plenty, but it still makes me nervous. 

Drawer

Scale drawing of drawer, figuring out where the pull will go, what size it will be. 

I am building a wall cabinet in pear wood for my first project. Engrossed as I am with the task, my mind still wanders. In the middle of walking to school, of planing or sharpening, I'll inevitably catch my mind replaying one of these themes. Some of these thoughts have been with me since childhood, refined and shaped over the years, but fundamentally the same. 

The questions

Have I moved closer to beauty? Or have I only made another series of compromises? 

Compromises will eventually compound in error until beauty is unattainable. 

The first tells of my satisfaction, fulfillment; the second, my anxiety levels. 

Dessa’s Fighting Fish

I’ve got a lot of imperfections / But I don’t count my ambitions in them. 

I didn’t come looking for love / I didn’t come to pick a fight / I come here every night to work / you can grab an axe or step aside. 

The natural

Tamora Pierce’s Alanna wanted to be a knight and masqueraded as her twin brother to do it. She is most excited to learn how to sword fight, but is humiliated in her first bout by a boy who her guard says is “a bit of a natural.”

“Can you train to be a natural?” she asks.

Then she borrows her guard’s sword, too heavy for her, to train and answers the question for herself. 

I ask myself: if they say you can’t (and they often do), do you want the thing itself enough to do it regardless? Even if it turns out you truly can’t? And if they say you can, what good does that do you without the work?

I tell myself: when you decide you want a thing, let rising to the obstacle be your first reaction; go find out for yourself. 

Philomela

A sister: my jumping-off point.

I remember glibly, callowly wondering why Philomela didn’t just write down her accusation for Procne to read. Why go to all this trouble of weaving the scene?

Not realizing that literacy is a privilege. And, more generally, having someone choose to teach you a skill is something that can be withheld all too easily.

Later, I learned that our word text comes from the Greek textos, or textile. 

I think of Philomela saying what she needed to say with the means she had. I think of Penelope unweaving by night. I think of Arachne’s skill at weaving getting her in trouble with a god.

I think I need to learn how to weave. 

Age quod agis

Do what you are doing. 

This is a luxury: the luxury of pursuit and the chase; to have purpose, feel aligned and resonant with it. I'm aware now that I’ve never been able to give my full energy and attention to the thing I wanted most before. 

Galway Kinnell's Wait

Wait.
Don't go too early.
You're tired. But everyone's tired.
But no one is tired enough.