Making Up Lost Time

In some ways, this closing week was my best week in three months since the attack on me that resulted in a cowardly attacker breaking three of my favourite ribs. It wasn't just my ribs that were seriously damaged though, other injuries with the broken ribs ultimately and literally brought me down. There hasn't been a day pass that I haven't revisited the event nor had I some pain in my body resulting from his spiteful, childish and malicious act. The reality of being injured by another having a hissy fit is the false perception that we can and will recover what we had before. An attack of this kind is never merely an accident. Any attack borne in anger of this particular kind always carries with it the dynamic intent to impart immeasurable harm in the moment, regardless of the unpredictable outcome and it's this that makes the difference. Striking anyone for whatever reason will always result in some level of injury the attacker will have no control over. To be taken out of normal life for three months is no small thing. These three months can never really be fully recovered. You have to write them off and start over as best you can. I think I have been fortunate. I had good health and strength up to the point of impact and I am as able as is practicably possible to be. Please, no platitudes. I know exactly where I am and I am, as ever, perfectly content to be in this place.

The man who so seriously damaged me took three months off my life to simply dismiss them. You cannot attack a 74-year-old man from behind, riding his bike and without him knowing, and not expect the outcome and intent to cause damage even serious damage at that. I can tell you, this man has caused me both physical and mental damage the depth of which he actually has no true knowledge of as yet. Why? I simply told him that he was wrong to force cyclists off the cycle path because he didn't want to run on the pedestrian path where it was not generally allowed for cyclists to ride on. My reason for interceding? two of the three cyclists in front of me were small children and they were confused by his bullying.

The outcome of running at someone full speed with both arms locked outstretched for an attack will break bones, tear skin, bruise and strain any victim and probably cause long-term damage and possibly even death. Everyone knows this. Where it mattered most to me was that I have a family of four sons and a daughter most of whom have children. I did not know when I was going down that I would ever take a breath again. Subsequently, lying on the pavement and still unable to release or take a breath, I still did not know if I would ever be able to breathe again. Looking back on those first five minutes after the attack, I see now that I could quite easily have died. Of course, my family feels the pain of what happened. Friends and the people I work with feel it too. The impact of what he did, simply because someone confronted his actions towards others as being selfish and ill-considered, doesn't end at the scene of the offence but merely starts there. And if that sounds somewhat dramatic, it's not at all.

I have so much yet to do in my life to conclude my work so shortening my remaining years by three months is by no means inconsequential. I ended up redirecting my energies to different channels of work that took out the physical demand my furniture-making with hand tools relies constantly on. Many in my audience worldwide advised me not to do this and that, to not get back too soon and I know they said this with the best intentions, but I knew I had to take responsibility for my own life, listen to my body, consider the advice of medical professionals where necessary and so on but, ultimately, I felt that getting back to work as soon as possible was the best recovery path I could take as long as I did it carefully. Looking back now I am glad this is what I did because two days after the attacker broke into my life in the way he did, by trying to work my body, I better identified what the medics could not. I found my weak spots and played to them accordingly by supporting them with other parts I would normally never use so determinately: using two hands on my saw handles in a non-typical manner enabled me to redirect energies while at the same time still moderately exercising my dominant arm and shoulder. I relied then on my torso and legs and all of this meant that I was creating self-related therapy according to how this or that part of my body felt. Another thing that is not so obvious and yet crucial is to learn more about our bodies through injury, damage, pain and, yes, an intentional assault.

Having an accident caused unintentionally by the action of another or ourselves or some other happenstance thing does not at all or in any way carry with it any other dynamic than something simply went wrong. What occurred was completely unintentional. Now we can have accidents causing damage to us that may not be intentional at all but carelessness and wanton recklessness may not have any intention to damage us but it does add a dynamic that cannot be considered accidental and therefore ignored. For instance, people power-driven in their running, cycling and driving often do so with the intention of forcing their pathway through and additionally, their will on others to get them out of their way. It's become a more common reality without any question that runners and cyclists can and do get irritated by anyone who gets in their way. They, in the moment, develop attitudes and flawed feelings toward others and I see this just about every day if not more. The feeling of dominance in their quest for uninterrupted exercise can be and often is highly intimidating to those exercising at a slower pace who, well, get in their way and that is when most often things can go very wrong. Hence, here in the UK, we are using something of an archaic law to prosecute this not-so-small percentage of cyclists aggressively barrelling through without due regard for road conditions, environments and other users legitimately using the roads and cycle paths for walking and running, etc.

As it stands, such cyclists in the UK who kill or seriously injure someone whilst riding can be jailed for a mere maximum of two years, under an 1861 law: 'wanton or furious driving '. This is by no means much of a sentence for an intentional speed-drive leading to such serious consequences and imagine having to kill someone or seriously injuring someone before any action at all is taken. I find this especially so in our present age where macho-man cyclists do indeed ride their bikes irresponsibly and would well fit the criteria "Wanton and furious", Factor into that that many bikes now have the added assist power as electric bikes with battery-driven motors together with the momentum the added weight batteries and frames bring to such bikes; now we indeed have a real and uncontrolled problem. With bikes now weighing half as much as the man riding it, and the problem seems to always be men, you have an accident or death just waiting to happen. In my case, an altercation arose because the runner was forcing his will on two small children and a mother all cycling on three independent bikes just ahead of me in the specific cycle path they were supposed to be on and not him. I stopped to speak to the runner. There were no raised voices or expletives, just a few simple words confronting his action and his defending his turf. Subsequently, in a matter of seconds, he decided to add the dynamic of violence and it's this that changes everything to inflict both physical and mental damage on another. The other in this case was me!

This has been my third design to conclude since the assault but I actually made about ten or more of the three pieces in the development phases of the designs. The first two were relatively small pieces. I did this on purpose as a lead-in back to gradually heavier work and the more demanding energy furniture making with hand tools demands. As on the day of the attack, I didn't know how much I would recover or how serious the damage would be. I now find myself being ever-grateful for the level of recovery I have had. I am always surprised by just how much repetitive work still spikes my appetite for what Texans call the "same ol', same ol." I just love every aspect of my woodworking with hand tools and it never seems to get old. It has been that way for 60 years thus far and I see no waning in my love of the ordinary and then too the extraordinary. If I tire at the end of the day and the work seems a little more tedious than at the start of the day, I clean up, sweep up and put up and write, draw or whatever else is productive for me and the next morning I am just as keen as when I was a fifteen-year-old. The week I started the bedside tables I cut eight housing dadoes in quick succession, 17 " long, 3/4" wide and quarter-of-an-inch deep. Though it's in spruce (relatively soft), the knots and their surrounding grain are a beast to work with with chisels and saws as they are hard and as dense as any other wood you care to name and have no grain run you can reliably follow with your cutting edges. As always, I did enjoy the whole of it still, and what was really nice for me at this stage in my recovery is that I have a few days of working where I experience no pain or strain to my rib area as in recent months. Oh, there is still some discomfort in other parts of my body that I find myself cushioning now and then, and I did have physio to help gain relief, overall I am now doing much better.

The good thing for me now is that I am unhindered in my work bringing everything I know to others around the world. My greatest worry at first was that I would not get back to where I was three months ago. You see, my work is not yet finished. I have at least two more books to write, drawings to do and designs yet to make and I expect that to be another three or more year's working. Fact is, even when I do finally finish my curriculum, I hope I can have five more years designing and making pieces yet still in my head and to do this selfishly for my own enjoyment. Who knows, perhaps I might even have an exhibition of Paul Sellers' designs. You know, a dozen or so studio-made pieces and such but made in my usual garage space. This would take some radically different, in-my-space videoing: I'm thinking quite invasive, in-your-way stuff.

Anyway, I still feel inspired and have ambition. This ingredient is so important for makers like myself committed to my craft. My apprenticing others through their formative steps to mastering their skills in our distance learning energies has opened the doors for many thousands who might eventually embark on becoming makers full-time and in their own right. I do hope so.

My mind never really stops. I am always creating and designing life. The engineer in me shows how we evolve when we are makers. I pick up a section of steel, perhaps an old file, and make a blade for my plough plane or an alternative router plane. It's quicker and cheaper than scrolling down eBay and I get the chemistry of making in my brain that feeds my soul as a maker. Today, I am taking a break in Wales. Leaning on nature by a lake and a river and then a stream flowing down to the sea just below me. I arrived in a storm of lashing rains and wind but even that has a way of rewarding me. After a restful night's sleep, I enjoyed breakfast and saw sunshine over the mountains. Life is good!