wood

June 29th, 2012 by Jan

In the novel The Last Chinese Chef, the fictional creator of the cook book, writes, “Give thought to opulence. Too much is perverse. But extravagance of some kind is important — it could be an ingredient, effort or talent.”

Brilliance is also important. I love watching someone who excels at what they are doing. When we get in the zone of life, we tend to move smoothly without gaps and interruptions.

There are only a few more wheelbarrow loads of wood to haul off the driveway. The huge pile of mill ends that was dumped without care is close to being neatly put away.

I have the grunt work. Ken does the stacking, and he is a master. He makes his work look neat and effortless.

I take a lot of joy in his brilliance. We traded jobs once and I froze with horror as to how to make the giant tetras, real life puzzle, work. I laid 6 maybe 7 pieces of wood and decided I’d rather do grunt work and let him continue to train for the world championship title in the game of Jenga.

Having a full wood shed is a source of comfort for us. Using mill ends helps a little with the thought of opulence. We know it’s a privilege to be warm and dry in the winter. And as we work with our winter heat supply, we have mixed feelings as we watch logging truck after logging truck leave Bowen Island every day.

It is funny how when we work with wood it’s brilliant and when the owners of  Cape Roger Curtis clear cut huge trees to make room for real opulence, we find it perverse.

Sigh.

2 thoughts on “wood

  1. Laur

    Ken is Zen Master, you are Yoda in that work flow. It worked quite well. Have you two been practicing and perfecting this?

    Reply

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