Off The Grid: Craft and crafting are not the same thing
Whether it is a gift or curse to believe oneself capable of anything is yet to be determined. On the internet, it seems relatively safe to become an expert by proxy. Everyone’s sister’s cousin’s uncle friend was a pathologist, virologist, biologist for a while there. The market for know-it-alls became so saturated, I had to leave Facebook.
The danger, as I am discovering, is that in real life one has to put one’s money where one’s mouth is. I prefer to put burritos there, but we’re building a house and this leaves no shortage of a need for various expertise nor opportunity to make a fool of oneself. The latter being something at which I an indeed experienced.
That space between expertise and naivety is where I have spent much of the past decade of my life cleaning stove pipes, hanging HardiePlank siding, and watching YouTube tutorials. Clearly, I live on the naivety end of the spectrum, right next to “blind optimism” and “obnoxiously chipper in the face of crisis.” Also over there is “pretending” and “fake it till you make it.” Both have served me well through many a DIY project.
Maybe expertise is just overrated. My husband says it is not, which is why he hired a real framing crew to build our house. I offered to do it, then told him a story or seven about the incredible things I’ve made with a hot glue gun and popsicle sticks. It’s essentially the same thing as framing.
“Can I at least help the framing crew?” I asked.
He told me they had it covered, then later made the crucial mistake of mentioning he couldn’t find a forklift for them. I marched around the house with my arms outstretched, raising them and lowering them perpendicular to the floor, complete with sound effects.
“What about now? Can I help them now?” I asked.
He said no. I’m pretty sure his internet search history would reveal a number of desperate pleas for loaner forklifts anywhere in the Northwest. Please, you guys. My wife is threatening to help the framing crew.
On the day the framers showed up, so did I, in my Birkenstock sandals and blue-eyed smile like some eager little sister. I did not even bribe them with donuts. I promised not to make them change the radio station or curb their language if only they would let me schlep lumber back and forth. Much to my joy, they hired me to work for free building my own house.
Now that I have seen them frame and stand a wall, I could probably do it myself (with a little video research), except for all the math required. Math is the antithesis to my wing-it, close-enough, duct-tape, fat-bands-of-caulking solution to most problems. Apparently, when one is building a house, it is best if things fit together. Particularly the walls.
Also, there is the bureaucratic red tape of building a thing “to code” as if we were a civilized state or something. The off-grid oasis was in the county, which means most everyone else uses glue guns and popsicle sticks, too. I’m pretty sure the Libertarian Party could run on that platform alone and do well.
Craft and crafting, I am told, are not the same thing. Here in the city, we have rules. Builders have to at least be expert in those. It’s a small price to pay for a road that is maintained. I bet they even sand the hill when it is icy.
So I left my glue gun home and hauled and stacked lumber for the framers to my heart’s content. Manual labor is a kind of atavistic happiness, a meditation on the blessing of a body. Standing that first wall with them closed the gap between the dream of building a home and the reality that it is being built. There is carpenter in my blood after all. That’s almost as good as being an expert.
Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammimarie@gmail.com