A New Week Replaces the Past

This week is yet to happen and last week has gone completely. Life unfolds day by day and week by week and how we fill this space we call life or time or the actual space itself matters. I talked to an archaeologist today who asked me many sincere and healthy questions about how my life works. I told her that it was both simple and complex but it was one I engineered as best I could and despite invasions constantly from people I invite into my workshop via the opening of my door each day, I like what I do. A rope barrier hangs between me and the visitors and in general I can control my engagement with people by looking up and smiling, smiling and getting on with my work or just plain keeping my head down and working. I can close the door if I choose to but mostly choose not to. I want to share my life with people most of the time, but I confess sometimes enjoying not talking and looking around but just engaging with my work. I suppose I might consider myself selfish were I to close the door on the world. Where else would people see someone working with their hands and be able to stand in an entryway hearing sounds they never heard before and smelling wood they never smelt before?Where else would they watch a man make a dovetail joint on a drawer being made or a plane swipe off the name of a child from a piece of pine to become a wristlet? You see, my life is unique. So unique is my life I actually don’t know a working man in my region who leaves the door open for visitors to stand inside his shop, ask questions and things like that. Being a married, family man, I like to see families come in and spend a little time here. I like seeing the children’s faces and hear their questions and the answers the parents give, whether they are right or wrong. If I kept the door open and the router running (if I had one) and the tablesaw (if I had one) or the chopsaw (if I had one), how would that happen. I said it before and I will say it again, machines seem to create an insurmountable barrier between children coming into the workshop. I am sad sometimes when I wonder if my craft will actually die before they hear sounds I hear all day long, but then I nudge myself and say keep pressing. I know one thing for certain. The art and craft of woodworking will not come to children through the doors of a machine shop and woodcraft and the art of craftsmanship will be continued through the lives of those working wood using hand methods and that’s what keeps my doors open wide and the children standing there asking me wonderful questions.