Barn Dance Looming

On a recent rainy Sunday afternoon when neither of us had our children Dave Ryan and I drank, dug sod and carried it away with lawnmower and cart.

There was a time when I would have been bothered by the question: Why are we doing this?

It was a thought process that I’ve been getting cured of lately.

Dave’s been a help with that.

I spent 33 years bouncing gladly between ridiculous enterprises before Sawyer was born.

Then came reality, a year and a half strike, Gus, financial imperatives, long nights, a shoulder that for three years smelled like stale milk, a lot of poop, a failing marriage and the constant questions of: what needs to be done, am I using my time efficiently?

Not that I was.

I’ve never been good at that.

So what does digging a 16 foot by 13 foot footing with two worn out shovels in the rain have to do with building a sea-going sloop?

What’s the point of building a large wooden boat?

Not the type of questions Dave Ryan asks.

 His thinking runs more to the: In the free time you’ve got, you need to be up to something and it doesn’t matter what it is so long as you’re getting a kick out of doing it.

All mountains, like pyramids and cathedrals, are ultimately made of sand.

It’s the act of raising them, not the fate of our creations, that matters.

That rainy Sunday a month ago he was teaching me a philosophical lesson.

In practical terms, my shed needed to get a lot bigger if we’re going to build a 25 foot boat in it.

From those beautiful black spruce I cut for plank we also were able to mill enough dimension lumber for a 16 foot extension to the shop.

So in the hours not committed to work, children or life’s necessities I’ve been scampering about on a borrowed ladder.

The laundry grew like a mountain in front of the dryer from which I’ve been picking outfits for the boys and I and the car’s a mess.

But I added a two foot overhang on the roof of the now peculiarly shaped shed so I can lean against the open door frame on rainy days and dream of sailing into Cape Torngat’s fjord in the vessel growing behind me.

I think before we loft her out full size on the floor this fall we’ll need to have a barn dance.