January 19, 2020 – Sunday
This week son (Ted) entered a short story contest. I was too chicken to sign up for it … deeming my writing skills “too rusty” compared to other works I’ve read lately. However, I still wanted to know the instructions he was given so that I could “dip my toes in” without really doing so.
The first phase of the contest is (less than) 2500 words – genre: romance, character: woodworker and subject: getting organized. If you don’t use these parameters you are disqualified. Finalists are chosen and they then go on to Round 2 and are given another assignment … until it continues to a winner.
Here’s my unofficial story …
Twilight. My favorite time of the day. As I sat beneath the oak tree in the yard – it hit me. No, not the answer to world peace or how to feed our nation’s hungry … but a perfect little acorn! Pointy end down it hit me – right on top of my head – and along with it the idea of what to do with the task at hand. The seed of the tree became the seed of my idea. From small things grow great things. I rubbed my head and hoped I was right.
He planted the tree before I was born. Our initials are carved into its trunk. He was always hopeful. Who plants a tree unless you are hopeful that there will be a future and someone who will love and enjoy it? He was always believing that there would be tomorrow. Always believing that I would come.
He was the love of my life.
He was decades older than myself but people seemed to understand. He’d known me almost my entire life. It was love at first sight – for both of us. And that’s just the way it was … and continued to be.
Until it wasn’t.
Professionally I am Jacqueline Dumond – aka: The Curator of Clutter. Seriously, that’s my title. Otherwise, I’m known as “JD”. How I got to this point, I’m not really sure. One day I was helping a neighbor organize her linen closet and the next I was juggling talk shows and book signings about all things clutter and organization. That then morphed into curating – saving and displaying what is special and loved as masterfully as in any museum. Which then morphed into the realm of interior design and well, here I am today – kind of a Jacqueline of all trades – but mostly I am the queen of all things clutter. And now … wood.
“JD – I’ve found a tree. Come!”
I hear his voice in my dreams. Husky. Comforting. Reminiscent of wood smoke trails on gloomy autumn days.
I pocketed the acorn – thanking it as I did so – and hurried inside to my tablet. I am an old-fashioned girl … I love my laptop but I can’t live without my legal pad and black fine point.
I snuggled into the corner chair – one of my necessities. I tell my clients, Live with what you love. It’s not a splurge so much as a necessity. That seems to quell their fears of spending too much money on things that they would never think of spending any money on. I have never understood why people buy 4 chairs that are $100 each that they don’t really like – instead of 2 chairs at $200 each that they really love. If you don’t really love something – why buy it?
Love it – Keep it. Loathe it – Lose it. That’s kind of my mantra. It helps keep the clutter (of mine and apparently my clients and followers) at bay. If you don’t love it, need it, use it or are absolutely emotionally attached to it – get rid of it. I can sometimes be more ruthless than I’d like.
An organized whatever – desk/closet/home – is not only calming but efficient.
That’s also more of my mantra. It sounds a little snooty (or corny) … but it’s true. And, who doesn’t like calm and efficiency?
My thoughts wander as I sit in the chair … down-filled cushions slip-covered in a chintz of roses. Even in winter, when the snowflakes dance just beyond the windows behind me, this chair makes me happy. Live with what you love.
He was a craftsman. A chemist by education – a woodworker by passion. His hands could take the roughest materials and turn them into treasures as smooth as marble. He whittled as a boy – then moved on to carving decoys. As his skills progressed he found the treadle lathe to his liking … making candlesticks and table legs by the thousands. But his true love (aside from me) was carving wooden utensils … spoons, ladles, spreaders and the like. Thousands of those, too. I am so grateful that I can, without guilt or angst, continue to give them away. I have no worries of ever running out – there are so many.
The woods, back behind the house, supplied the materials for his pieces. He’d go for long walks and almost always bring home a windfall … poplar, maple, cherry … hardwoods were best – not too porous. The black walnut was his favorite – soft enough to carve, hard enough to last. And, if the branch had any nuts on it – bonus! We’d make ice cream.
“JD – I’ve found a tree. Come!”
Those words echo and swirl in my head and heart. How I loved him!
There are people who favor photographs to remember people by. I tend to organize items of sentiment and remembrance into display cases. Labeled, orderly, neat, tidy, safe. (Something like my life.) Nothing I’ve ever put into a case was a great artifact but each one was something cherished … something that touched someone’s soul. Select items that made their eyes glisten and childhood or special memories from eons ago seem like yesterday.
I love what I do. It is exhausting at times but it’s almost always rewarding.
But now there are these spoons. Boxes and boxes and shelves and shelves of spoons and ladles … pie servers and spreaders. I used to call them utensils (collectively) and he’d laugh and say, “No, they’re my-tensils. Get your own!” Silly things we remember. But I guess they are now my-tensils.
I plucked the acorn from my pocket and brought it up to my face. Looking over my glasses I studied its glossy casing and finely criss-crossed cap and sturdy stem. Not a worm hole in it. Its pointed end obligatory for planting itself firmly into the soil after falling from the mother tree. Absolute perfection. I wondered, not for the first time, what it would taste like if I were to eat it.
I opted not to find out and put it on the side table. Because of this perfect, little nut I knew what I needed to do – at least with some of his wares … and the workshop.
I began sketching out my ideas … one page after another. A bowl of soup and a glass of wine later, the sun having set behind me hours ago, I got up to stretch and wiggled out my stiff fingers. I felt at ease. Content with my progress. My heart ached but I know he’d approve.
Our love was one of absolutes and fairy tales. I was his princess and he was my prince. We were never cross with each other. There was never a mean word or hurt feeling between us. We were both so genuinely happy to be in each other’s company and orbit.
When he smiled – his eyes sparkled and little crinkles formed at their edges. His hair was as black as nut hulls – wavy and thick; the envy of many his age. We laughed. We sang songs – sometimes old, sometimes silly, sometimes both. We danced. We shared secrets and our innermost dreams, desires and reflections. He brought me gifts from the woods … a fallen nest, bits of lichen and moss, a length of bramble – heavy with fat, juicy berries, bittersweet, birch bark; things that no one else would consider finery. But I loved them all … and him for thinking of me and so sweetly.
It was late and too windy for my liking but I decided to go into the woodshop and nose around – get my bearings. It was nothing more than a room carved (so to speak) out of the old garage – but it was warm and cozy and filled with a variety of wood – in a variety of stages of work. Piles of branches in one corner – not yet touched since his gleaning. In another corner were boxes of finished spindles and table legs. In yet another, more of the same and then some. The shelves were lined with his carvings – latest and old – spoon upon spoon – spooning together for ages. Shavings piled under and around several work stations … some piles thick and curly while others were fine as dust; their size depending on what was going on above. It held that woodshop scent … clean, crisp, woodsy but also with a hint of oil and musk.
I looked around and my heart felt heavy. As a kid I had a guinea pig and how he loved his cedar shavings. And here I was – wishing I could be like him and burrow deep under the piles gathered on the floor and dream all this away.
This was his domain. This is where he turned ordinary into extraordinary … a chunky branch into a curved soup ladle. Another stick into a delicate demitasse spoon. He worked and caressed the wood like no one else and brought out its inner beauty. He was an artist, a romancer of wood; he was masterful in his doings.
I sat on a stool and fiddled with one of his micro tools … so tiny. A mass of them were strewn about on the workbench. That used to drive me crazy – the disarray. This was the one area I was forbidden to dig my hands into. Until now.
I now knew what I’d do once I started to work on this space. I’d organize the daylights out of it! I’d make display cases for some of his finest works … but then I’d turn to the drawers and shelves. I could see them pristine – all labeled and alphabetized – holding blades, chisels and grinders. Others for planers and sanders. The oils and towels would be in metal tins – tucked neatly beneath the labeled and contained carvings on the shelves. The branches would be stacked and sorted according to wood type. I had big plans for this place.
I moved through the space with critical eyes – refining my drawings and taking notes as I walked through the shavings … footsteps behind the mice who lived here. Live with what you love.
I was deep in thought and jumped half out of my skin when I heard the thud! on the roof and the soft swish-rustle and another thud as it hit the ground. I knew what had happened – a limb had fallen and hit the roof and then slid to the ground. I went outside into the inky night – the light from the woodshop spilling out to where I was standing.
I smiled through my tears as I dragged the limb into the middle of the work space. Once the leaves were off I’d put it in the corner where the other branches lay. I had a lot of work ahead of me. But not tonight. I grabbed a handful of what lay on the floor and turned off the lights and closed the door softly.
As I walked back to the house I called out to the heavens above, “Grandpa – I’ve found a tree. Come! I’m making ice cream.”