I've written about how "I can't not make things". Right now I'm completely engrossed in makeing "little stuff", the type of pieces I made when I was working as a teacher with a wood shop available to me, (the only reason I was a teacher) almost 30 years ago... I need to stop here and say I'm not really sentimental, I have a few things from my past I like to think about, but I prefer to live in the present… So doing my work (well it's not really "work", for me it's somewhere between physical labor and a satisfying hobby. Most days anyway) is one way I communicate with my dad. (He would have been 95 years old a few days ago.) It's not a great spiritual channeling, but a nice little conversation. And it's only here and there. Sorry, I need to stop again and explain...he had an interesting combination of unconnected creative and mechanical skills, which thankfully (and luckily, [because I can't or don't want to do anything else] I inherited, at least some of them. And I would not make things for a living if it wasn't for him)...I have returned to my past in a way, I've spent the last few weeks making little bowls on my lathe. The same things I did when I started woodworking as a kid, with my dad.

But, in the process, a part on the machine which had been gradually wearing out, finally completely gave out and needed to be replaced. An odd-sized, hard to find bolt. That kind of repair was his specialty, not really mine. But with a little searching I found the bolt, I fixed my little lathe, (the backbone of my "maker of things" life) and went back to work. It was so completely satisfying. I still feel like the kid who wants to call his dad to help him fix things. It would have been fun to tell him I did it. Something as simple to fix as replacing a bolt.