If I had a religion…
I would like to have a “handmade life.” That is, one that is my own true original creation, consciously crafted and sincere. This is difficult to do! I’ve watched too many tawdry melodramas, lived in too many plastic cubes, eaten too much fast food, regurgitated too many slogans, decorated my life with too many corporate logos and followed too many random fads. How hard it is for me to think for myself, to see for myself what is true and what is not, what is beautiful and what is not.
As a husband, a father, a teacher, a neighbor, I would hope to be a person who can work without scripts and yet still find a way to be “not unkind and not untrue”. A person who both celebrates others and cherishes stillness.
And as an artisan, I would like to leave behind more genuine beauty and utility than waste and disappointment. And when it comes to this house, it’s a matter of being both preemptive and farsighted. After all, the house has inherited me as much as I have inherited it.