Every
evening I have a glass of red wine or two with dinner, clean up the
dishes and then run a 5K – on Saturdays and Sundays I run a 10K. The
running part keeps me fit, and the wine beforehand keeps it interesting.
Tonight
as I was running past the neighborhood pool I picked up a partner, an
aged golden Labrador that had been sniffing around the bushes in a
gully. When the dog joined my pace I was a bit surprised; he was
clearly struggling against some stiff joints. The dog pressed forward
and we traded leads, back and forth. After a minute or so three kids
came sprinting out of a house, each flying a French blue bedsheet
behind and all of them calling the dog's name.
I looked down
into the dog's dark eyes as it struggled to keep up with me, torn by
the call of the children rushing behind him. And I saw myself not six
weeks ago at the WoodWorks show in Ontario, Calif.
I
was giving a drawboring demonstration on Saturday afternoon to a small
crowd at the show and was pounding a rived peg through my dowel plate.
The bench I was using didn't have any dog holes, so I had found (quite
oddly, in retrospect) a band saw riser block and was using that to
support the dowel plate during the pounding part of the demo.
Wham.
The riser block jumped. Wham. I squashed my thumb with the hammer. I
bled quite a bit but kept working. One audience member came up unbidden
to patch my finger (some woodworkers always carry bandages).
After
a couple more sentences, my vision started to turn off, like closing
the aperture on a camera lens. I struggled mightily to keep talking
about drawboring. My body had other ideas. I sat down and gave up.
Everything went black.
In retrospect, it shouldn't have
surprised me. I had been working for three weeks without a day off. I
had flown to California on little sleep. I'd only had time to eat some
oatmeal that morning. No lunch.
Still, the paramedics came. A
Snickers bar and glucose tablet in the first aid station fixed me up
pretty good. A big Mexican meal and long night's sleep did the rest.
But the whole odd experience changed my view of the world and
woodworking a bit. I've always been prone to build things solidly. But
after that experience in February, I've been diving even deeper into
the world of juggernaut joinery. I mean, I'm only going to be here for
so long. What I build should last longer.
And though I see
myself erring on the side of caution in joinery, I've also felt
unabashed to try new and wilder techniques of making the joints – plus
inlay, working on my turning and trying a few curved forms from some
Creole furniture that would have given me pause in January. I feel a
bit reckless on that score.
And that's what I saw in that dog's
eyes this evening. He was over his head in racing me, but he poured it
on nonetheless and pushed me to sprint faster and faster. But then when
his owners called him, he looked up at me.
"Go home," I said.
And the animal thought better of the race. He ended his struggle and
faded back into the arms and waiting sheets of the laughing children.
And I headed home to finish up some through-tenons and sharpen up the
cutter in a 5/8" beading plane that had been giving me some real
trouble. With any luck I'll be able to maintain this view of the craft
and world around me – it's just the right balance of recklessness and
caution.
—Christopher Schwarz