#16 God Is in the Details, and So Are the Goddess, Yahweh, Allah, and the Creator

“Attention must be paid!” cried Willy Loman in the play Death of a Salesman. Willy Loman was desperate, referring to the way a person and a society can fall apart if we don’t pay attention. His life's dreams dissolved. I am happily not in his situation, but I have always paid attention to his words, taking them to mean that our lives (and those of others) will be richer if we do pay attention. With attention, we can make a difference, create aesthetic joy, hear what is truly being said, observe our own selves and one another in a spirit of appreciation and understanding, take in beauty however we can, so as to feel nurtured emotionally and spiritually.

These days, I have been paying attention to the craftsmanship, beauty, skill and talent all evident in the details of the work of the artisans around me. Check out these details from the Cabin as It Is Becoming.

1) Windows Remember the windows stuffed with newspaper (below, left)? Hah! Here is custom-designed trim (below right) on the window that my sister-in-law Wendy sent me, a design that Chris, Mike and Tom are producing all over the house. By now, Tom, Chris and Mike all know that I will always ask, “What is it called?” referring to tools, or processes, or styles of woodworking. Tom replied on this one, “Kim’s style!”

2) A well crafted knee brace: The back deck now has a doorway with Tom’s special kneebrace (left), made with the router and the chamfer bit, to hold up the roof over the back door. Notice the artisanry of its shape, the lovely redwood, the work that the brace does, holding up a roof but not complaining at all.

3) The Feng Shui Entry Way (below, right) provides tightly packed in pine panels with the window above. Soon there will be a redwood slab from a tree that came down in the yard in order to provide more sunlight and satellite. The trim over the doors matches trim over the windows. Tom’s eye seeks symmetry and beauty in every detail.

4) The bathroom: How I have maligned the overdevelopment of bathrooms that seem to become temples grander than the homes that so many people ever get to live in, such as this one:

Yet the biggest and most dramatic change in this cabin is the indoor bathroom, an addition that brings me into the 19th century (though much of the world still lives in much measlier conditions than I have ever had). Tom, Mike and Chris blended well the two buildings--the original cabin and the outhouse--so that the bathroom that will be a site for ablutions and a temple to the tropics (see the room in process on left a month ago and the almost finished version on right).

The web site below explains that much of the U.S. only got indoor plumbing in the 1930s. http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/life_13.html

5) Learning new tools: Below left is Beda driving the excavator through the yard so that he could put in the lines for the gas and water (he has also been excavating and overseeing the installation of the septic system). Notice how close he comes to Buddha on the pedestal on one side and the little table of tools on the other, but he drives like he is definitely paying attention!

When I drove it, you can see I reacted at first to the whiplash I was giving myself, but then I got to enjoy the feeling of grabbing a load of gravel in the bucket and dumping it.

6) Gables: The pine gable on one side (left, below) compliments the fir paneling on the wall opposite into the loft (right, below). Great work went into choosing each piece of pine on the left and the few fir boards needed to fill in what had been an odd gap in the wall of the loft—one of many oddities that will be replaced by the kind of conformity that creates visual and aesthetic unity.

7) The Woodpile comprises the last little detail to share, but it means a lot to anyone living in the country since fresh wood has to be cut and dried six months before winter. We were laughing the other day that just when summer arrives, you sadly have to start thinking about winter again because you need to have the wood pile ready, but winter wood is the last thing we want to think about.

From all the debris of the demolition of the previous structure and the sawing of wood for new posts, beams, trim, etc., I have a whole pile of kindling that is sweet to the eye, since last year I had to buy kindling a couple of times at the hardware store. From the trees that were cut down, I will also have a wonderful stack of wood to keep me warm through the night. I am grateful.

The End Is Near
I sent out an invitation to the gang of folks who have worked on the cabin for a celebration, since Tom has predicted that we could be done with all the major work in three weeks. My invitation read, “I hope Tom is better at predicting The End than Harold Camping was regarding the apocalype in May.” (Here is a photo of Tom with what I call the Sword, but is really called a "sawsall.")

The remaining doors should be installed this week, as well as the trim finished on the windows and doors, and the floors in soon, leaving only the bookshelf and raised and tiled woodstove box to be built. I have lots of painting to do, but that’s like the icing on the cake now.

I may yet find a way to help others build their homes one day, the way this project (like Habitat for Humanity) has helped shanty dwellers find more stable homes--very inspiring!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PEiaz1AvzQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RO4Iae4HPU