A sharp knife and a stick of white cedar. Then a pile of shavings. Two things that in the beginning are perfectly capable of staying in their own lane until their paths cross. Then, depending on the imagination and the skill of the carver, the outcomes of their meeting are endless. What can a piece of wood become? What can a sharp knife accomplish? In capable hands the vision of your mind’s eye can become three dimensional, and can dance on the edge of reality.
Add some paint and perhaps glass eyes and even some hooks and a touch of weight strategically placed and the stick of wood can become a functional piece of art: a fishing lure. It can catch your dinner if you employ a leader and possess the additional skills of a successful angler.
Tools and supplies. Wood drying. Rounds from a downed tree, split wood stacked, knives in their box, sand paper, sharpening stones, saws, a sharp hatchet… all integral pieces to the puzzle needed to make something from nothing. But it isn’t, or wasn’t ever really “nothing.” It was a tree that took years to grow, that when it was finally cut down took years to dry. It sat and waited and could have of course ended up as firewood but it hasn’t. Inside (something to ponder) lay the potential to be transformative, the almost magical gift of responding to creativity.
How do you decide what pieces of wood are ready for this journey and what if any are destined to be given up on? There’s a meme and joke about the old guy that finally discovers the perfect use for the one piece of wood in the garage he’s saved for half his life and how proud he is in that moment. Even then we as the observers understand what the OG already knows. That’s just one piece and his justification for storing it away pales in comparison to the piles and piles of other pieces of wood he’s saving until they meet their destiny. When he doesn’t have it, then he will need it most.
My stacks aren’t cut off ends of treated lumber or trim leftovers or any number of industrial discards, however, I have them all over my garage and in corners of my basement-cave-artstudio. Most of them don’t look like much, they’re knotty and the grain is too straight for some projects or too worm ridden for others. They wait. They sit split and stacked and dry. Non-descript.
That’s what you probably see. I see frogs and fish and mice and crayfish and turtles and birds and beavers and ducks and more frogs and fish. I wonder if I’ll ever find the time to set those things free and then I wonder if I’ll spear over them or someone else will or if I’ll cast just north of the perfect riffle by a sunken tree and if I will have placed my trailing hook just right for the set? Sometimes I also wonder if I won’t be able to find room for what I see because of the knots or splits or just the integrity of the wood and I’ll end up cooking a batch of hotdogs over it.
Not everything is as it seems. Usually there’s a lot more to it. And, sometimes it is best just left alone. For a time or for forever.
