Action… the path to success!

“The path to success is to take massive, determined actions.” -Tony Robbins

When things stall out or feel like they need shaking up, I seem to be programmed to action. Perhaps it’s my nature, something born into me that was passed through long genetic lines that led my ancestors to find themselves on the shores of a particularly beautiful but stark bit of rock in the North Atlantic questioning the decisions that had led them there. Maybe it’s nurture, something inspired from my mother’s story of leaving America behind to seek her own adventure in Nova Scotia or the same fuel that impelled my father to chainsaw the window out of the side of our livingroom in the name of “redecoration” and “well, it needed to be done” moments before his parents arrived for an evening meal. Whatever it is, wherever it comes from, it’s always well intended.

“Be content to act and leave the talking to others." -Baltasar Gracian

Don’t get me wrong, I’m as inclined to the trap of inaction as the next person. Sometimes there’s just so many things that need to be done that the circuit board gets overwhelmed and the only solution seems to be a bit of staring at the wall, perhaps reading a few paragraphs from a book randomly pulled from a shelf whilst standing on the way to…somewhere? Surely it’s time I properly folded all of my underpants and arranged them alphabetically by colour? Procrastination is real but I also love work and sometimes simple tangible tasks can really help to blow the smoke out of the bigger, overarching things that we have less power to control.

“People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do.” -Lewis Cass

I’m not at all stalled out on my workshop, or art projects, or commissions… but the ground can feel uneven these days and with so much on the plate it can feel hard to find footing to really push against. But today was a day that demanded blowing out the smoke. Today was Monday, we began the day an hour early to our daily session at the gym and lifted heavy and left feeling on top of things, with the day stretching before us and lots of opportunity to really get after it. With a new commission in the pipeline that I’m feeling excited about, I felt determined to get the materials needed to assemble the bench that I will use for both drafting and glueups. This meant borrowing Chris’ truck and trailer but they had been loaded with old particle board furniture and bits and bobs from the barn destined for the dump a few days ago. No problem! A dump run is absolutely the type of gift I give my sweetheart. That way he doesn’t have to do it. I can drive a trailer pretty well and can heft things about very handily and knew that Chris was looking forward to having the house quiet so he could work. So I got the truck, hitched up the trailer, and off I went.

“Let your performance do the thinking.” -Charlotte Brontë

So, a little history. Long ago, in a relationship far far away, I was married to someone who I knew hated doing lathe and plaster demolition. We were in the process of buying a very old (on the razors edge of being condemned) building which we had agreed to live in and renovate together as a bid for a brighter financial future. While he was on the west coast visiting family, I thought it would be an incredibly sweet gesture if I did all of the lathe and plaster demolition before he got back. And I did. I rented a drop box, hired a few palookas from Craigslist to help me swing the flat bar, and led them in a full assault. I demolished two floors of this building down to the studs. When my husband returned to his exhausted and dusty wife standing proudly in the rubble of the house that we had not yet actually officially purchased… ahem. Well… the gesture was a bit rash on my part.

“Well done is better than well said.” - Benjamin Franklin

I returned to the house late this afternoon having done two trips to the dump, purchased my bench materials and loaded them into the barn, addressed a few irritating beurocratic tediums like changing my cell phone service and drivers license over to Nova Scotia and was delighted to find my sweetheart pleased with his own afternoon and with my actions. In sharing the account of my comings and goings whilst cuddled on the couch, he asked where I had put the sails that had been at the back of the trailer.

“God provides the wind but man must raise the sails.” -Saint Augustine

If you’ve ever dated a Round-the-World sailor, you might start to notice that they have lots of very specific stuff. Stuff that may all look alike to you, say, if they had shown you a sail that was garbage to be thrown out, you might not have thought much of the difference between that and something called a Code Zero… the difference between trash and a sail worth 21 thousand dollars. You might even have found yourself innocently tossing said bundle costing 21k bananas into a dumpster at a local transfer station with a light heart. You also may have had the conversation with yourself about how extraordinary and brave this person must be to have faced the months at sea and the dangers entailed… but you’re never going to be more impressed than I was today at the epic self restraint I witnessed as my sweet, fiery, ginger contained himself through emotional convolutions that have given me an entirely new respect for the energy one suit of human skin is able to contain.

“Action is the antidote to despair” -Joan Baez

Tomorrow morning you will find me praying to all available deities. Tomorrow morning you will find me at the dump with heart in mouth ready to dive into whatever pile is necessary. Tomorrow morning you will find me ready to exert whatever forces needed. But for now, I think there has been enough action for one day.