By Paul O'Sullivan...
I retired recently. Not quite a spur of the moment decision, but I had turned 60, an accountant friend said I could access my super, I hated my job, and my life a bit as a result, and I’d also recently lost my beloved younger brother.
Bit of a downer; the end of that sentence. But it had to be said; by me anyway. Grief does things to you. Puts some things into perspective; makes some things unimportant; stops you in your tracks and collapses your world into a painful black hole, and then starts fights with family members. It’s really great.
I do not recommend it, except that it opened up a door to another world that my adolescent little heart really knew nothing about. No biggie. But now I feel people’s pain and get choked up when I hear tragedy on the news, when I used to just wait for the sports news. Go QLD. I pause each morning and see the little shrine to my brother, and say something like, “onya Eric’, or “miss you bro”, or just wonder if he’s burning in hell like some christians say, or hopefully more likely, he’s just gone, like before he was born, like all people have done since the dawn of dying, and like I will do too. I’ll die and rot and become organic matter but without the adhd. People just stop existing like people do everyday, everywhere and yes sadly in everyway. In war and famine and car crashes and murder and sadly just getting too old or lonely for the heart to keep beating.
My brother’s blood was problematic apparently, but it was also his attitude to health, and doctors, and believing that things would be, as aussies say – ‘alright’ mate, because so far things have been manageable. It’s problematic when we don’t listen to advice from the experts. When we tidied up his unit we found evidence that maybe he’d been bleeding a bit more than he should have. Little tell tale marks on sheets and clothes, and notes from doctors and reminders about appointments. Dire warnings really, that a significant other would have picked up on, but without someone to hassle him, Eric was able to make his own path for good or ill. So when his platelets became critically low one day in the self service queue at coles, he suffered a brain bleed and lost consciousness, and fell, smacking his head into the hard, foot-scuffed vinyl on concrete, and never really retained full consciousness. His poor mate from work, Daniel, top fella, was the one they called first and he saw young Eric (he was 57, a month off his 58th) fade out of life in hospital when the wise medical folk realised my younger brother was not responsive and would never be again. Poor Dan called me, and kindly told me what had happened and what was happening and what might happen next. I stopped in the car park, squatted down and wept.
So why am I telling you this?
It’s been bothering me, actually a bunch of things have been bothering me, and again grief does things to you, whether you like it or not. My wife suggested I retire and we knock off the mortgage with my super, while she keeps working. She’s a good sort my missus. We’re paying less to the bank now, and it means we save whatever we still earn. And when I say we I mean her. My yoga teaching pays for the coffee I have after yoga. Certainly doesn’t pay for the timber I buy and the tools I break. I’m not really very good with money. But I’ve always been handy. Dad made us service our trailbikes when we were kids, and hand him tools when he was servicing his. We didn’t have mobile phones and were a little less distractible, which funnily enough, autocorrect wants to fix to destructable! And he was a bit of an inventor, and loved fiddling with things and fixing broken stuff rather than buying new. He’d whistle tunelessly thru pursed lips as he ‘convinced’ inanimate objects to bend to his will, and then happily install the object back into use. So I probably caught the bug from my dad.
I’ve been keen on woodwork since I did manual arts at high school back in the 70s, metalwork less so, and between jobs I ended up working for a gazebo manufacturer on the sunny coast for a while. Classic pavilions. Cypress pine. Pretty structures. We’d build them in his massive shed; pre-drill and screw together with long batten screws dipped in petroleum jelly, so they’d come out a bit easier; mark all the timber, and then dissemble; load on a trailer and transport to the job site where we’d quickly reassemble and cut roof sheets to size, and do a bang up job and leave happy customers. But best of all, at the end of the day, I’d feel like I’d done something useful and challenging. I was sore for the best reasons, and I’d learned skills, and even had fun; though occasionally there’d be shit days, and shitty customers, and just general shittiness. It happens.
But I loved putting the rough sawn posts thru the thicknesser, and smell the glorious heady scent of cypress, and see the miracle of maths and physics and angles and timber and manpower create a structure that was strong and beautiful and practical. And I used to tell my brother proudly about this work. He used to be a chippy. When I went to uni, Eric was doing his apprenticeship, and then earning money way before I could, and buying cars and bikes and often late night pizzas that he generously shared with his tight arse brother. But he got tired of being ripped off by builders, and having a sore back, and thousands of dollars of tools to maintain, so one day he saw a job advert at a train station he was renovating, about train driving for a living, and he took the plunge. Brave man my brother. Not afraid to change course or take on a challenge. But he never married – maybe not so brave?
Anyway...i’d love chatting with him and sharing work and life stories, and we’d often share wood projects we were trying. He’d cut burls from trees, and surface them on his home made jig, and gift them to some lucky person who probably didn’t realise the work, and expense involved. We didn’t see each other that often, as he worked mostly out bush, and I was sadly too lazy to visit him. My loss. I could have met some of his awesome train driving friends and gone hunting and fishing and cutting burls with them. Life is full of regrets. Well mine is. I regret not doing better professionally; I regret not seizing opportunities, or even recognising them as such; I wish I’d been more proactive; more cooperative; more community minded, and less of a lone wolf. And a better earner! But you know what they say about regrets - mostly you shouldn’t have them. Should just get on with it. Eric did.
So here I am in my 60th year, and I get this terrible news that young eric has died, and then worse; we’re fighting over the disposal of his goods and chattels, and I want his tools, or at least the ryobi ones that I already have a few of. I wanted to use the tools that my brother held in his strong talented hands. I am trying to keep him alive. Using his gear; wearing his T-shirts and hats. Contacting his friends and reminiscing. And as I said - I’m a tight arse. I don’t lash out on expensive tools, so his ryobis fit the bill. And as well, he had some timber that we’d bought together the last time he was in brissie. Some hairy oak, camphor, more camphor and some beef wood. I had plans for the timber, but like all my plans, they tended to wait a bit before they actually took flesh. I like thinking about things; as if it’s a chess game - considering how this move might lead to the next etc. I make things a couple of times in my head before I actually make the prototype, wondering about how I could streamline production to make multiple copies more efficiently, sell as a ‘side hustle’ then I lose interest and move onto another project. Memes on facebook about distractibility make me laugh and shudder at the same time.
Now that I’m retired I have less excuses about busy-ness, but there’s often stuff that gets in the way if you don’t make firm plans, or have a deadline. There isn’t always time to ponder a solution that’s aesthetically satisfying.
The daughter’s boyfriend is moving in downstairs, so I have to finish renovating, but without willing helpers I find time to continue to fiddle with prototypes, or the odd wifely commission – mahjong table with mahjong tile racks. Phone holders for a market stall. Fixing the back scratcher – a bigger job than it appeared! Toilet roll holders from old bearers that I saw on instagram. Nifty! Shelving and tool or screw holders for the messy shed. Or are they rather - ‘sculptural expressions of man’s greedy imposition of extractive capitalism on nature’? I love listening to the abc as I potter. And on the way to the shed, I chainsaw some fallen logs from the weeping fig, then put them thru the bandsaw for rustic boxes, and then realise how many steps there are per box, and how I need space to do the steps, and just how messy my shed is. I’m finding things to make for fun/interest/curiosity, that would also be useful for my hobby, and I’m still learning to be methodical to exploit my curiosity efficiently, and so projects don’t get in the way of each other and even hamstring each other’s completion by becoming too complex. I’d like to make the most of my time here on earth, but it takes energy to get organised. To quote Taylor Swift ‘It’s exhausting’.
I’m never ever (going to make that mistake again). Like ever! But I do.
Like swifties, today we seek out a tribe to belong to when we get bored with our family.
And there are so many choices today, and many seem so arbitrary, or dependent on a whim. Once upon a time……..you’d be born in a tribe, learn the tribal ways, become initiated, have a role that helped the tribe, become an elder in the tribe (if you survived) and then die and be remembered by the next generation of that tribe. Maybe getting a tree named in your honour!
Maybe that’s what’s been bothering me the most; deciding whether I want my association to stay firstly with my family of birth, or if I can happily let some of my original tribe gently go, and be true to who I want to be and how I want to belong? I know the choice doesn’t have to be cataclysmic or binary, or petty; I want it to be conscious. I want to put my time to best use, and still have fun and be frivolous occasionally, but not be sucked into whirlpools that I don’t create….or maybe avoid whirlpools altogether. Hot tubs are a better option.
And ‘on-line’ tribes! Like a social woodwork club! What a great option! Try before you cry! You can observe and listen, and maybe contribute a little as your confidence grows, and no drama if you’re not in the mood today, or for a week or a year. Commit as much or as little as you like. Learn from the elders; find a place to be; identify with other members but continue on your own path unmolested and hopefully undeterred. Family with no awkward family meetings.
And then……..
Bobby kindly offered me some space to do some writing, and I sat down to gather my thoughts, and the words spilled out. Like pine shavings from a sharp plane. Lifting from the surface of the timber to curl and shudder off the blade and into the air before falling gracefully to bounce and gather in soft piles on the floor. Scenting the air with resin and dust as the rough cut timber takes another shape and like magic becomes smooth and orderly and civilised, but still organic. What a glorious transformation.
Almost religious. Where do trees go when they are felled? Tree heaven if they’ve been good? How can they be anything but good? Sequestering carbon, housing birds and animals, providing shade, stabilising the earth, feeding the bees, making some suburbs more expensive, and looking pretty, before it’s even been hand crafted. What would hell be for a tree? Probably suffering in my hands as I cut the wrong way and chip out the grain, or measure once and damn it all cut twice, or totally butcher it and have to start again with a fresh piece. Getting to heaven for a tree requires, in the most sacrificial of ways, giving up its life for others. What an example! But before it goes to heaven, the tree has to undergo a complex resurrection taking skilled hands, imagination and sharp tools, and in the process becomes worthy of admiration in our everyday churches. The houses of the rising damp. Maybe it’s purgatory for a tree – not yet in heaven, not alive, but held twixt those states to pause and be of use domestically for those who admire the crafted organic. The domesticated wilderness. The live edge river table. $3000 in a fancy furniture shop, before you add the legs! Or maybe there is no heaven.
Personally, and because of science, and Scott Morrison, I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I do believe in making the most of life, and listening to my conscience, and to wisdom. I’d love to salvage felled timber from roadworks and land clearing. Such a waste. How did humans become so careless? When we knock down old growth forests and mulch them to send to japan to make paper so we can say we’re preventing unemployment. Maybe we could think long term and look at other employment, and less extractive industry? You’d never do something in your home that meant you’d jeopardize your own home! You’d find a way to be sustainable in your relationships with your home and your family members and even the neighbors that you don’t know or maybe like.
So! I’ve got Eric’s tools now, or some of them. I didn’t take everything – I don’t have the space. But he had such a lot of stuff, and sometimes duplicates, and I’d hate to see stuff get chucked or wasted. So there’s still stuff we have to sell and then share the money we make with all the family.
Family! Who is my mother? My brother? Sometimes family is who we choose to be with. Since retiring I’ve joined a running club, a book club, a million clubs on facebook, and I’m trying to be less judgemental and cranky about other club members. But I am tired of friend requests from beautiful young women who have just changed ‘his’ profile picture. Doesn’t take me long till I get the shits with things. I wish mankind made better choices, but I’ve heard that while it’s disappointing when people let us down…...there are no other people. It takes a village to really extract and pollute and mess things up. So I hope things like social woodwork clubs, and knitting/yarning circles, and even political parties maybe, can make better villages. Always depends on the choices I make. I always wanted Eric to live closer to brissie, but I could have made more effort to prioritise going to see him. There’s a lot of glib things said about grief, that I probably believed till I lost someone I loved and needed. Now with a bit of time to think, or maybe time to choose what I think about, I might say that grief for me is living with someone in your memory and hoping they’d still want to be your friend. A bit like Jesus maybe, or Mohammed, but without the judgement and fear of getting roasted at high temperatures. Hopefully trees still want to be our friends when they see what we’ve done with their carcasses? Likewise, I hope the next generation thinks well of us, rather than shaking their heads at our selfishness and short term thinking.