Crafting Virtue

It’s not just what gets made, but what the act of making does to the maker

Note: Dan Szczesny is an award-winning New Hampshire journalist, author, and speaker. His latest work, The White Mountain, along with all other things Dan can be found at his website here. For the month of November, Dan is publishing “live essays,” such as this one, on his Facebook feed. We are grateful for his permission to reprint some of these essays here at Monadnock Underground over the next few weeks. You can find the original post, from November 2, here. — CJD

It’s late. By which I mean, we’re late for school, baby. Again. And again…

Actually, it’s our fault, your mother’s and mine; our fault because you have qualities which my father would have tenderly referred to as a tinkerer. He was a tinkerer, his world the spasmatic growls of oil and metal in the steel plants. Your grandmother, my mother, also tinkered; with yarn and material and sharp needles that gave her callused fingertips.

You mother tinkers with wood, and the earth. And your father, well, words are my assemblage.

So, I’m not surprised by your love of tape and scissors, of stickers and string, of pockets full of acorns that become “food” for your stuffed animal friends. I don’t want to say no when you wake up and go right for the coloring book. I’m reluctant to cut short your time puzzling through how a toothpick fits into a straw.

I’m reluctant because like the Father of Ethics himself thought, I also believe that there is virtue to be found in craft. The Shakers understood what Aristotle meant when he said that a well-crafted object is more than just useful, but rather the actual making of that object serves the purpose of bringing “balance, proportion and harmony” to the maker. A master architect likely understands as well. Or a plumber. A chef. Or my father with his black grease hands.

We are what we make. We make what we are.

And so, there we are. Late. You, constructing some wistful crayon and tape fantasy, and me just trying to beat traffic. In these instances, some negotiating is always required.

“Tell you what,” I say, “bring some of your arts and crafts with you in the car and you can keep building on the way to school.”

You agree, and then surprise me once again and start collecting what you call “material.” You take a toothpick, a straw, some tape, a black marker, a handful of stickers, and on our way out the door you find a split open milkweed seed pod and shove it into your pocket.

My tiny Martha Stewart, who famously and repeatedly said that there’s inspiration in the everyday and all that can be turned into projects.

Meanwhile, the morning ride is uneventful, the traffic light and little by little — as we always do — the air and the trees and the river pull us out of our sleepy shells as we move to meet the day.

As we get near school, you say, “Daddy, look at my umbrella.”

I find a parking spot, ready to shuffle you inside, but there you are — grinning ear to ear. You’ve attached the toothpick to the eraser of the pencil and have fastened the milk weed pod to the top. There’s nothing particularly unique going on here, you haven’t invented the wheel. But I like how you use your hands to create, how you’re not afraid to experiment even with the most rudimentary of material. Perhaps because of that.

“It’s an umbrella,” you say and twirl it. “For worms.”

“Do worms need to stay dry?” I ask, once again asking a question that it never occurred to me to ask before becoming your dad.

“I don’t know,” you say. You shift gears. “How about a lady bug umbrella?”

“That works,” I say. “Let’s add some stickers to that thing.”

And the morning melts away, as it always does. We’re late. Your classmates come and go, the wind blows the dew off the tree tops and I lean in closer to you and help you decorate your milk weed umbrella. The difference between being ten minutes late and fifteen minutes late seems inconsequential in the face of a lady bug umbrella.

A few minutes extra in a chilly parking lot at the edge of town in order to protect lady bugs from the rain seems a fair price to pay to develop a slim amount more of virtue.

Just breathe, baby. Imagine. And create.