Notes from Maine - 2023/08/27
Still sitting at a folding table in a gutted kitchen. Below me, footers are nearly cured. New posts are not one-hundred percent required for the next step, but they won’t hurt either. It will be nice to have this floor solid and flat for the first time. I’m sure it was state of the art when it was built in the nineteenth century, but I’m shooting for a slightly higher standard.
I’m not sure of the origin of the following quote, but it started showing up in my reading a few years ago: “Any idiot can build a bridge that stands, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that barely stands.” Meaning: if I throw enough time and materials at this project, I can make it solid. The clever part is throwing just the right amount of time and materials at it so it’s solid without going over budget and taking the rest of my life to complete.
When I studied engineering, we had a basic course on Statics and Dynamics. It began with the study of things at rest (like bridges and floors, hopefully), and progressed into the study of forces in motion (like a floor that is collapsing into the cellar). I remember signing up for that class. Barely paying attention to what I was doing, I said, “I don’t know exactly what Dynamics is, but I’ve studied statistics [sic] before. It’s not too hard.” I was not prepared for that class.
My family left a couple of days ago. We had a great visit, although it was very focused on getting stuff done. My sister and I worked to turned the gazebo into a screened gazebo. Mom had a million projects (of course), and my nephew studied math for most of his stay. They also toured a couple of colleges. I hope they had a good time. It wasn’t particularly recreational.
Yesterday, I tried to dive back into the book that I was working on at the beginning of the month. It’s like riding a bicycle up a medium slope. You’re fine as long as you keep momentum. But step off the bicycle for a second and when you get back on the pedals feel stuck. I might have to coast back downhill (so to speak) in order to get back up to speed. It’s a good book. I want to get it finished before it gets stale.
Sometimes I think I’ve written too much. My nostalgia is cluttered with scenes that I invented. I’ll see something out in the world and think, “That reminds me of the time that…” Then I’ll have to stop myself because I realize that the memory is actually a portion of one of my books. My grandmother’s friend had a little knickknack shop down in Belgrade Lakes. I knew it well. But, later, I trapped a bunch of characters in that shop during a supernatural demon attack (Accidental Evil). I don’t think I’m remembering the actual store. I’m only remembering the one that I filled with my characters in that book.
Or, when I was writing that bicycle metaphor above, the bicycle I pictured was ridden by Robby on an abandoned highway in one of my Extinct books. I’ve ridden plenty of bicycles, but my strongest bicycling memory is from Robby. A close second is Harold and Fran from The Stand. I guess maybe I invest too much weight in fiction in general? I love biking, and I have a great bike in my garage right now. But the last time I went out, I had to fix a flat about five miles from my house. It feels like getting stranded is a big risk.
I don’t want to strand myself out in the real world. I don’t dare stray too far from this fantasy world that I’ve created for myself. Metaphorically and realistically, this place that I’m sitting in is a construct. I’ve grown so accustomed to it over the past twenty years that I can look past the defects and just see it the way that I imagine it. If the sun comes into this kitchen in the late afternoon, I’ll see all the dust and cobwebs that I failed to find the last time I tidied up. So now I’m deconstructing the whole room, taking it down to studs and joists instead of addressing that mess. When I finish it, regardless of how it really looks, to me it will be the kitchen of my imagination. My eyesight is not that great anymore. Instead of relying on my eyes, I just imagine what I want to see and pretend it’s the truth.
