18) Tethered

You welcome the break. It’s been a very, very long time since you’ve had an ‘easy’ day.

“You realize,” you ask Jackie, “that we have yet to take a single day off in three weeks? Not a single day!”

“Really?” She says, sounding surprised.

“Yeah… no… first day off since we got here! Crazy huh?”

“Sure is. We’ve been working really hard.”

Later that day you and David walk down to a nearby brewery to get a beer for his birthday... the reason for the ‘light day.’ You order the darkest beer they have on tap and notice a vintage illustrated poster neatly framed and hung up to the right of the bar. There’s an old barn and below it the town’s name… a swarm of honeybees encircle the barn.

“Real fucking artsy when it’s not in your soffit… ya know?” You point to the poster.

“Huh?” Says David.

“The swarming bees…”

“Oh… yeah… that…” he laughs.

Fucking bees.

**************************************

The next morning it’s back to the grind. David heads out early to grab the floor sanding machines. You and Jackie tape up the room in thick plastic sheeting to the minimize dust.

“We have this thing until tomorrow… and it’s a pretty small room… so I’d say that we can probably knock this one out and David’s office… if we’re really making time… we can even tackle the stairs!” You tell Jackie, confidently affixing the tape to the plastic.

Except that that was most definitely not how things turned out.

When David got back, he and Jackie unloaded the sanders and the large wooden box of sandpaper. David started the sanding while you searched for your respirator. When you found it, mentally prepped yourself for that thing (because you hate how it feels on your face) and finally got it fit correctly David had already been sanding for a good ten minutes.

You can’t wait to see how far he’s gotten… probably well on his way to getting this floor sanded and done… Yet once you zip yourself into the dusty, noisy room… you can tell that this is going to take a lot longer than you had anticipated.

Really a lot longer than any of you anticipated as you had to lengthen the rental time another 24 hours. The three of you take turns operating the two sanders and a cumulative 40 hours later… ONE floor is finished. You joke around about thinking that you would have time for sanding the other floor and stairs…

“Well I guess I was way fucking off with that one…” you later tell David.

“That was brutal. My neck and back are killing me… I definitely did not expect that to be… well… so frickin’ physical…” you tell him.

“I told you it was hard!” He says.

You’re all exhausted… you’re all sore and tired… but… the floor has turned out incredible. 130 years of dirt and grime gone. You run your hands across the smooth bare wood. You close your hands and imagine the craftsmen that constructed this floor, board by board… probably running their hands across the surface, just like you’re doing now… admiring a job well done. You smile… your back still screaming… your hands still a little tingly from all that vibration over the last two days… and you stand up… taking one last look at the incredibly beautiful floor before zipping up the plastic barrier:

Totally worth it.

David still has to find a couple of boards to repair the holes in the floor. You go to several places with him, bringing a little piece of one of the damaged boards with you… it’s thick, a good two inches of solid wood, and the plank is wide. None of the lumber suppliers are sure what the wood is… Maple? Oak? Ash? But they can all agree on one thing: they sure don’t make wood floors like they used to. The new boards aren’t as wide and are almost a full inch and a half more thin than your old plank.

One of the lumber suppliers tells you that you’re going to have to have a specially hewn board and that you should drive over a few towns to a local mill…

The next day David heads off to a local mill with his pieces of wood. One of the men working there gifts him a few custom cut boards. He refused to take payment telling David that they sell in bulk and it’s really not even worth their time to process a payment for a few dollars worth of wood. David sincerely thanks them then heads home with his custom milled lumber.

We decide on not removing all of the damaged planks, but rather cutting out the damaged bits then adding in a new piece of the fresh cut wood. The goal you decide on not only this project, but all projects moving forward, is to preserve as much of the original material as possible.

When he’s done cutting and piecing the new planks into the old floor, you and Jackie come in and give everything a light sanding. With your dominant hands you both run the little sanders back and forth, hunched over on the smooth floor, your other hand gliding effortlessly across the freshly refinished surface, seeking out even the most minor of imperfections.

Your grandfather was an incredibly skilled master carpenter. He used to come in and do all the finish work in old churches and restaurants. He never owned a power tool. You still have his old hand crank drill and your most prized material possession, his old work bench: impeccably crafted and dovetailed together without a single nail. It’s worth a fortune in today’s cheaply manufactured world, but to you, it’s priceless. Then there was your great-great grandfather who was such a skilled carpenter, that he was actually chosen by the Prime Minister to represent Italian carpentry excellence at the World’s Fair.

And now, with your little hand held sander, doubled over on the old church floor, your hand running along each board, you can’t help but feel closer to them… not only your grandfather, and great-great grandfather, but every single one of the craftsmen that constructed this majestic building. The feeling is surreal: nostalgia, reverance, pride, maybe even longing… you’re taken aback by the emotion. You actually get a lump in your throat, clearing it before anyone can notice how choked up you’re getting over the whole sanding adventure.

It’s an otherworldly experience in that little room… your electric sander feels less like a tool in these moments and more like a tether to a history you’ve never known but viscerally feel in every pore of your being…

You take it all in… the smell of sawdust, the feel of the bare wood, you exhale deeply… a bit of respite before tomorrow’s next adventure: the 65’ lift is scheduled to be delivered, and although you will have nothing to do with any of the lift work, you can’t seem to shake that feeling you get whenever you think about David hanging out of a basket almost seven stories off the ground. It’s not a familiar feeling really… anxiety? No… you’re far too acquainted with that emotion… this feels less like worry and far more like dread. You’re not religious by any means, but whenever you think about your husband swaying in that basket over the roof you whisper: Dear universe… please let this next project go smoothly. Please keep David safe.

And later on, after ‘the incident’ and the scathing Amazon fall protection review your husband still shaking, managed to peck out on the keyboard, you wonder if your little ‘Dear universe’ plea had anything to do with him still being there to let Jeff Bezos know that his fall protection equipment sucked… one star… no stars if he could give the defective equipment an even lower rating… and that he most definitely ‘would not recommend.’

Top Left: The North tower’s floor before we started. There was a thick coating of linoleum glue that really hampered the process and slowed us to a crawl.

Top Middle: the northern most wall and where we plan on adding a half bath.

Top Right: detail of the floor’s poor condition, with an old patch job (the wood circle).

Bottom Left: The North tower’s floor after sanding. What a difference 40 hours makes!

Bottom Middle: Physically the job was incredibly demanding. I definitely questioned my life choices about four hours in… but the end result? Totally worth the back and neck pain.

Bottom Right: The after really speaks for itself… how gorgeous is that floor????