Our Occasional Carpenter
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There is this man who does occasional carpentry for us. He is a tall quiet man. When I ask him to do a job for us I call and leave a message on his phone. He then calls back and leaves a message on my phone. The stage is now set for serious attempts at live talk, and once this happens, I describe the project to him. He then casually expresses a formal interest, and a time is agreed upon when he will come and take a look. When he arrives, in the evening, into the steam of our half-finished dinner, we move into the living room and convene a conference around the project. I explain to him again what I would like to see done, and my wife does the same in her own words. He repeats what he perceives as the common denominator of our views, and he does this carefully, looking alternately into my and my wife’s eyes. We then explain to him the rationale of the project: why we believe the table needs shortening, and invite his judgment on this matter. Now in this aspect our carpenter is different from let’s say the guy who installed the garage doors and said: “It’s your money” at the critical moment when his opinion was solicited. Our carpentry man instead deliberates and tries to put himself into our shoes. He then makes a statement starting with “frankly” or “honestly” or “if you want to know what I think.” It was a careful statement, that I remember, but I forgot the gist of it.
Lately he has been quite tardy answering our voice mail. Sometimes a week goes by. He got involved with this woman, I tell my wife. What woman, she says. Well, there must be a woman if he acts so differently. Do you want to ask him, she says. But what is the point. The point is, he doesn’t answer anyway.
Now his silence has started to comfort me. It seems to say, We have a tacit understanding about privacy, about necessary space. The commitment to occasional is earnest, this is no futzing around. If the table needs shortening, he might say in the pauses between his silences, we need to look at the options quite carefully. Unbiased, we should add. To start with, we would have to count the number of legs. To shorten a three-legged table is a piece of cake. A four-legged table requires the skills of a skilled carpenter. You made the right call.
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