There’s this thing that happens, and it always does happen. Spend enough time trying to keep your two balls in the air and voilà – three hit the ground. Making something by hand is just that simple. Design. Spec. Tolerances. Expectations. Mood. Eventually gravity pays a visit.
I finished DR1 today at noon, but not without noticing a few round things rolling on the floor. They looked at me if only to assure me, again and maybe for the billionth time in my life, that you can’t control all of it. Finding a peace in the result is a challenge for the maker, for this maker at least.
Things go sideways. Period. For me, when they do go sideways, it affects my being to the core as if my entire life, legacy, everything ever associated with what I do – all of this is now degraded to include the latest gaffe. It’s one big cloud that envelopes me, taunts me, consumes me.
I left the studio. Took a good ninety minute lap in the pain cave, showered, and refueled. Later I reentered the workspace and tried to find center. I cleared my bench top, swept the floor, and started a fork to complement the aforementioned first frame made over these past three days. It took only a few moments working on the front wheel holder before I realized that I couldn’t remember what went so wrong this morning.
There are many dark moments when you take something and try to turn it into something else. Making a bicycle frame from a pile of metal. The moments visit often enough to keep you honest. And if you don’t acknowledge them, worse yet – if you believe they’re not part of your dance, you haven’t stood at the bench long enough.
.
