Tools

I’ve held these tools since I was nineteen. Not these tools. Tools like them. They wear out and get replaced often. It wasn’t until I was a full-fledged adult with decades of making that I finally accepted that the tools I select and swing daily are my body. They are my life. As a young man, I romanticized about file strokes and wooden handles and sharp saw blades. I tried to channel experiences I didn’t have but wanted badly. But it doesn’t come that way. And it came. Eventually. After many many years and thousands of bicycles. My tools are I are of the same mind. We know how hard to push. When to stop. How to finesse. How to self-right the ship we’re steering. And we never go over the edge. Because we know (now) where it is and what looms on the other side.

All This By Hand
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