They say that some people see the trees, and other people see the forest. It's a metaphor for how you see life -- some people are detail-oriented and others like to look at the bigger picture.
Me? I see neither the forest nor the trees. I see... the wood. Every knothole, every line becomes something in my eyes: this one an armoire, this one a dressing table. I smell linseed oil and sawdust instead of the forest air; instead of birdsong I hear the sharp, high whine of the sander.
I'm a carpenter, before you ask -- a cabinetmaker, a restorer -- someone whose life revolves around wood and its manifestations. I've been in this line of work my whole life -- at twelve I was building my own crude cupboards and boxes; at fourteen I was doing basic restoring and finally, by sixteen, I'd become apprenticed to a master carpenter who taught me all I needed to know about wood and how to work with it.
That was maybe twenty years ago, and not a day has gone by when I haven't touched the stuff. I run my own little business now, making custom furniture that gets fetched once a month by my distributor who takes it to the city and sells it for exorbitant prices. The stuff is exquisite, if I do say so myself -- clean and classic, though I like to put in exotic little touches that hark of Morocco and Bali. I like to play with line and colour, mixing stained wood and unstained, dark and light, straight, sharp edges and gentle sloping curves. On the side I do restorations, mostly for my local community, but I've done some for museums too. It earns me a comfortable living.
And so, I can afford to take off for a month each year to go searching for wood. I've been to Bali for teak and to Brazil for Rosewood; I've been to central Africa for Zebra wood and iron wood and ebony. Each wood is unique, and sometimes I just stare at it, willing something beautiful and useful to emerge.
Even the stuff that gets brought to me for restoration is distinctive in some way. They come in worm-ridden or termite-chewed or cigarette burned, parched for oil, humbled by neglect. But I see it in each and every one -- the immortality of wood, the way it hides layers under layers, the way it provides a backdrop to human life. Even the grain of wood is beautiful -- sometimes like a woman's hair blowing in the breeze, sometimes like a swift river, the patterns forever frozen.
It's a simple life, really. I have the wood to occupy me; I live on a smallholding just outside a little community which is surprisingly rural, considering its proximity to the city. There's my house and a small barn, most of which I built myself -- the barn houses my wood stocks, neatly stacked under tarpaulins, and my workshop is a light, airy room on the back of the house.
I have a modest garden which a neighbourhood teen comes over once a week to keep in good condition -- sometimes customers will come directly from the city -- occasionally even from out of state -- to see my furniture, and I like to have a place to entertain them. Beyond my backyard is an open field and beyond the field, the forest. It is from the field that May emerges, out of the blue.
I am contemplating a new shipment of rosewood on the fateful day of May's arrival. It is a delicate wood, good for soft, womanly things -- and I am considering a dressing table or a kitchen dresser. I am so lost in my thoughts that it takes some time for the barking to penetrate my hearing.
There's a dog outside my workshop. I stand up and walk to the windows, irate at the interruption. It's a nondescript brown mutt with oversized ears, and the sight of me at the window elicits a fresh volley of barking. Must be a tourist, I think irritably. The locals know better than to let their dogs run amok in my backyard.
"Plato!" A voice adds to the racket. "Plato you dumb mutt, shut up and come here right this instant!"
She emerges from behind the bramble bushes, carrying a lead. Her blonde hair is straggly from sweat; there is a smudge of dirt across one cheek and intruding onto her forehead like a pale archipelago. Her cheeks are glowing brightly and she moves with swift, strong grace. I imagine that if she stamped her foot, she'd rocket into the sky and soar across the treetops.
She sees the dog, scowls, then looks up and sees me. An unmistakeable expression of annoyance and dread flits across her pretty young features. She waves a hand at me. I lift a hand in greeting.
The dog has noticed her by now and has stopped barking in favour of bounding up to her and planting a pair of muddy paws on her jeans by way of greeting. Undeterred by the friendly show, she clips on the leash. I let myself out of the workshop and into the garden.
"Hi there," she says immediately. "Look, I'm really sorry about the dog, I'm 'sitting my grandfather's house and I thought I'd take him for a walk -- big mistake. I'm really sorry if he disturbed you."
"That's OK." I smile at her. She can't be more than twenty, maybe even younger. "Your grandfather? Is that Edmund?" Edmund Harris is a retired professor who lives in a comfortable house to the west of my plot -- I've run into him a few times at the grocery store and we always got on pretty well.
She grins. "Yup, that's Gramps."
"So you're house sitting, huh? Sure isn't the best way to spend a summer vacation, especially not out here where there's nothing to do in a radius of fifteen miles."
She looks surprised. "I never really thought of that -- there's a lot to keep me busy at my my granddad's place. Oh yeah, I'm May, by the way. Sorry, I'd shake your hand but I'm pretty grubby right now."
"Don't worry about it. I'm David."
"Pleased to meet you, David." She glances down at the dog. "Sheesh -- my granddad warned me he was a handful. I'm sorry if we bothered you in the middle of anything important."
"Nah, not really," I lie. It's hard to be annoyed with her. There's a wild, childlike quality that hangs around her like sweet perfume and I can't take my eyes off of her.
"Hey, I know this is a lot to ask, but could I use your bathroom?" May asks unexpectedly, rudely interrupting my romantic thoughts.
"Sure! Er... what about um, Plato?"
She ponders for a second. "I guess I'll just tie him up out here. I'd let him loose but I'm scared he'll run off again." Even as she speaks, she's looping the leash around the low brass pipe of an outdoor faucet. "OK -- that looks secure. Wait here, boy, I'll be back in a minute."
I laugh inwardly, wondering how many devoted human boyfriends she's done that to. She looks like the type of girl who can turn a young man's knees to jelly and his resolve to nil.
"Sorry about the state of my workshop," I say, opening the door for her, even though my workshop is swept and neat and thus in a rare condition of cleanliness.
"Oh wow... you make this stuff?" She stops to gawk for a second at an unfinished bedstead. One half is inlaid with intricate vine patterns in lighter wood; the other is awaiting completion. Her eyes travel from the bedstead to its matching bedside tables, to a pair of low armchairs that I recently finished carving, to a tall wardrobe. "This is magnificent."
"Thanks."
May walks to the bedstead and crouches next to it. She raises her fingers and gently traces the outline of the wood, as though searching for something. She seems perplexed. "Hey, could I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"What attracted you to woodwork?"
"I'm good at
She looks for a second longer and then glances at me. "Um, the bathroom...?"
"Oh yeah, sorry... just through that door and it's the second door on the left."
"Thank you so much!" She bounces off.
