Some of you may recall a couple of programs I did last January about building a shed - a project I worked on sporadically over the fall and winter. All through our relatively mild and almost-snowless winter I would grab a few days of warm weather to continue working on the shed.
With my jury-rigged staging I managed to mount the roof trim and shingle the roof. When that was completed I finished the sheathing and, in early April, finally hung the door, which made the structure weathertight and functional. But that’s the irony: with the shed now essentially done, I’m still not clear what I’m going to use it for.
My original idea was to build a storage shed so that I could clean out my shop and make it more useable. Then, partway through framing it, a neighbor friend casually suggested that it would make “a nice study,” and all of a sudden an alternate use for the shed found a spot in my brain. But I forged ahead, strangely content to leave its ultimate purpose in doubt.
Then in February, partway through the shingling of its roof, I had a revelation about the shed. I realized that what has kept me going on this project over these many months was not primarily its ultimate use but rather the process of building the structure itself. It was the construction itself that has given me such continuous pleasure, preoccupied my thoughts at bedtime and caused me more than one sleepless night obsessing about details I hadn’t quite figured out. I woke up each morning needing my daily “fix" of working on the shed. It was the simultaneous combination of cerebral and physical activity, that joined commitment of brain and body, the ongoing experience of figuring out the next problem in my head and then giving it solid form with boards and nails that kept me going.
Even as I teetered on my rickety makeshift staging I knew that it didn’t really matter what function this shed ultimately serves, or for that matter whether it even serves any. In fact, I knew it wouldn’t really matter if a windstorm blew it over, or if it burned down, or even if the staging broke and I ended up injured and unable to finish it. Though as far as that goes, I felt that we had made a pact, this shed and I. I somehow knew I would be allowed finish it before it finishes me. After which, if it only stands for one day, that will be enough.
I know that sounds weird, but I feel it to be true, not just for this shed but for all the other structures I have built during my life: houses, sheds, gardens, relationships, books. As with any creative activity, the making is all.
