Choose Strong
For Tim.
He had never thought painting a garage, or many other domestic jobs, could be
anything but a chore, to be done with as soon as possible so that he could get
back to what he was good at. Nothing wrong with the division of labor. Or is
there?
Today, three months out of a job, he noticed that even soaking the roller in the
bucket and bringing it to the surface without dripping paint were delicate moves
calling for thought and good timing. Next, he played the game of matching brushing
with his own breathing and before long, he had made steady progress. Stopping
briefly to admire his own work reminded him of Shawshank cons downing cold suds
on a factory roof. "We could've been tarring the roof of one of our own houses" as
one of them said in the movie. Bill didn't have to dream: he was indeed working on
his own house, under the sapphire-blue California sky. It was not boring, he did
not feel lonely, and he was thankful.
Around 1:00pm, he took a break and polished off three dotted bananas and two
wrinkled mangoes from the cooler. It was a fruit-based meal and not entirely of
his own choice. It was a long story. In short, when you blend the waste-not-want-
not Americanism with a weird diet from Rio De Janeiro in the giant mixing bowl of
the Tao, you got the 50-year-old Bill.
Into summer, every weekend, Amy bought two bundles of bananas and two packs of
mangoes of six each, among others from Costco. Like Bill, she didn't waste.
Wasting food was a sin, as they were brought up to believe. The problem was that
she rarely consumed them either, as if they were seasonal flowers for viewing
pleasures. It was like an old joke on a Chinese news Website where a guy dreamed
of life after hitting the jackpot: "I'll have two banquets a meal: feasting on one
and feasting my eyes on the other." The tropical produce would sit on the crowded
kitchen counter, rot, and end up in the compost bin.
Bill had given up complaining against impulsive purchasing long ago. She did it
with her own money and he shut up. As for the fruits, first, he wouldn't eat them
either, as they were not his choice. Wasting was a sin, however, and by midweek he
couldn't stand the heat anymore. It felt to him that he and Amy were in a staring
contest and he was the first to look away. He tried his best but sometimes could
not finish them before the next batch came in.
The miter box gave much better results when fixed on top of the Burro sawhorse.
The two holes at the bottom of the bright-yellow plastic saw guide were for the
screws. It should've been obvious. Why didn't he notice before?
The abundant caulk slick where the floor met the wall had been there since day
one. Attempts to clean it up only made it look worse. Why it never occurred to
him to scratch it off with the utility knife blade all these years? The nice
bamboo floor resurfaced in five minutes.
The shower shone again after the dull thin layer of grease on the slabs was
scrubbed off with, not anything fancy and potent in the ads, or an iridescent
bottle of detergent from the store shelf, but the plain old baking soda!
Working on the house, Bill kept discovering what he had missed in the past 15
years. He thought that he had grown handy over night when in fact he had only
grown patient. Nonetheless, it felt as if he had found a second brain. Step by
step, he even replaced the garbage disposal with customized electric connections
and unblocked Amy's bathroom sink drain. It was a miracle: whatever he set his
mind to, he prevailed.
He came to think that the decade-old painting slips and shoddy floor jobs were
caused by the lack of not just experience but also oxygen. When trying to focus,
he tended to forget breathing (It's scary that the mind could take the breath
away), which as the clock ticked would lead to small panic attacks, reminding him
to inhale. These often derailed whatever he was focusing on. It was an old habit
but when life was always about rushing from one finish line to the next he had
never suspected anything.
This to Bill was a revelation and it had come a long way. The idea seemed to
have sprouted shortly after he took up jogging. From a book he learned to match
steps with breathing. As a result, for miles on trails he could think of nothing
else, which made the sport a pleasant meditation instead of a gruesome challenge
to overcome. Even now, after two years of no running, he could still lean
slightly forward and scale Mission Peak in an easy trot ahead of most hikers.
He started to be mindful of breathing while working, on anything. Whenever
stuck, instead of adding brute force and then giving up, nowadays, the first
thing he did was to inhale, diaphragmatically or otherwise. If things went well,
he would try to match breathing with motion. It was this technique that made
trimming the birch trees (which filled seven green yard waste buckets) on his
front yard with a pruning saw attached to the end of a 15-foot pole safe, smooth,
and even enjoyable.
He seemed getting better at divide-and-conquer. If one day was not enough for
painting the garage, he would gladly do it in two or three days. When a task felt
big or he was not in the mood, he would start small, e.g., by simply planning or
gathering tools and materials. No matter how little he did, it was a step in the
right direction. Often it got the ball rolling and in no time, the job was done.
If not, it chipped away one bit of the puzzle and made the next try easier.
No physical labor, combat sports, maturity, or blessing-counting, however, could
take his mind off from worrying for long. He was going through a paradigm shift:
unlike in the past, he lost interest in professional work and stopped looking.
He loved writing good code but it would be the same game: they would test him on
data structures and systems at the interview, but in the end, it would be about
hierarchy and dominance. It no longer felt worth his time as he was sure that he
had less years ahead than he had lived.
He used to tell Amy when they were dating that he didn't want to be a slave or a
master. He thought going abroad, to the Land of the Free, was the answer. So far,
however, he had turned into both. By living on his investment, he became an
capitalist, calculating and exploiting. At the same time, he worshiped the mighty
moola just like everyone else, never having enough. Someone (It might be David
Heinemeier Hansson, the inventor of Ruby on Rails) said we came to Silicon Valley
to earn F-you money but after we made it, nobody said F-you anymore.
Bill lost a few nights' sleep over his unemployment and more pressingly, his lack
of drive for employment, went on soul-searching walks, and thought his long
thoughts. At last, he asked himself if it didn't dispel fear and allow him to
give the finger to the toy caste systems in sweatshops breeding rubes with more
hustle than curiosity and who responded only to fear and pressure, what was his
wealth good for? And that rhetorical question seemed to anchor him.
The 'less years ahead' sentence was inspired by the poem 'I counted my years and
discovered' (See https://blog.wenxuecity.com/myblog/64243/202306/10443.html)
which, Bill believe, told the truth.
Bill has mistaken patience for handymanship. He'll find out the difference soon
enough ;-)
You are quite right I should've used "shone" instead "shined." Thank you very much for pointing it out!
Thank you again for reading it twice :-)
The fourth and fifth paragraphs made me laugh.:)) I am the shopper in my household too. Bananas too ripe at the end are either thrown into compost bin or made into banana muffins.:))
Love a lot of sentences. A simple sentence, such as "It no longer felt worth his time as he was sure that he had less years ahead than he had lived.", resonates with me.
Learned the word "moola" .
By the way, do you think it should be "shone" instead of "shined"? I looked it up online, and it says that "Some (but not all) sources recommend using shined when the verb has an object and shone when it does not." But you could be right too.
Thanks for sharing Bill's story. It's a great read.