a handier man

Builder Cycle 1.0

All my life, I have told myself I am not “handy”. This simple sentence grew into a well fortified narrative with variations of self-justification: “I didn’t get that gene”. “It just has never come naturally to me, I’d rather pay someone to do it right!” So . . . I have avoided it. Then, in an ironic twist of fate, I married into a family that was like the definition of handy. The kind of people who build their own houses. I think I can barely build a house out of legos. Anyway, it quickly became apparent that I was not the kind of guy who builds stuff . . . it even became a running joke. This was my own doing - I had a good one going for some time where I would just randomly interject “I think it’s self-tapping” into family conversations about current projects. That’s one of my favorite self-defense mechanisms . . . make fun of myself before you can have a go at me. Ah blessed defense mechanisms - they are wonderful solutions to early problems in life, then they invert and become barriers to becoming; ways of hiding.

Historically, when I have attempted to build or fix something, I slowly unravel and spiral; de-evolve even. I feel exposed, stuck and like I do not know what I am doing. I think to myself, “What are you doing? You are going to just make this worse and cause irreversible damage . . . leave it to a handier man.” Then if my wife is helping me (who in some ways is handier than I am), I start projecting onto her. “What are you doing?!” I get reactive and tense. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like a failure.

One of the things I discovered during a depressive season a few years back, was that I would act out impulsively and aggressively. Literally like a younger version of myself, say 10 years old. Then afterwards, self-hatred would pour in. As my friend Kyle says, “Feelings about feelings are a mother f&%$er.” Overtime, I realized even the self-hatred was a defense mechanism, a barrier to becoming. As Memphis May Fire writes in their song “Misery”: It’s easier to say I hate it, than to admit that I create it. I wasn’t ready to understand and own it compassionately, that would take some time. I realized that this is why I have ultimately avoided building, fixing or working with my hands on anything. I don’t like the reactive little boy part of me that comes out when I attempt to build. In fact, I hate it. It’s a part of me that has hurt the people I love. A shift occured during an epiphany I had while reading a book called Widen the Window by Elizabeth Stanley, a book on the science and process of building a bigger window of tolerance for stress and dis-regulation. Helpful read but afterward I found myself thinking: I’ve tried mindfulness, meditation and breathing. I have tried somatic grounding when I am feeling reactive. But it’s like it doesn’t happen frequently enough for me to train new neural pathways. How can I practice getting frequently safely dis-regulated where I can get myself to come back to calm? Ohhhh snap. To my horror, I realized it was in fact building something that facilitated the optimal environment for me to practice this.

I just needed a structure, some form. Then as synchronicity (thanks CG Jung) would have it, The Preparation and building a mid-life rite of passage would come my way. So I have chosen as my first “Cycle” a builder cycle. Probably more aptly titled, a DIY cycle. ha. Of course there are other ways I am considering as well, such as the violent therapy known as Ju Jitsu, that will become future cycles. Below are the things I have built and a few reflections on each:

Chicken Coop

• I suppose I have my wife who ordered way too many chickens to thank for this. They were coming, they arrived and then I had no choice but to build! We have sold some as we accidentally were sent 12 instead of the 9 we ordered.

• I found a simple design off Etsy and improvised a bit. My wife bought a solar door off amazon that has been really nice so it automatically closes at night and opens in the morning.

• This one took the longest and was the most stressful, but I have to say it has been the most rewarding as well. To watch my family use it, enjoy it and get excited about it has been once of the best feelings ever.

• It’s been fun walking with my kids through getting chickens. One of the coolest was picking them up from the post office. Watching my kids get so excited as the mail person walked into the back warehouse to grab them and hearing them chirping for like a full minute till they arrived in a small box in our hands. My kids and I have been in the same spot: learning about caring for them and owning them. I have never even held a chicken until I was holding one and handing it to my kids. Don’t worry they are all still alive. Now we are waiting for the eggs!

Mud Kitchen for the kiddos

• Another simple etsy designed. I find the more confident I get the more I improvise. This project I started really loving the speed square. I also have been using chat gpt to act as a project assistant when I get stuck and that has helped some.

• I tried my first kreg picket hole jig which was fun but it took forever. I hear there are more efficient costly versions of them but I just decided to go back to construction screws.

• Used a lot of cedar picket fence and some 2x4s - added a shelf below to store things. Watching my kids enjoy it has been very fun!

Archery Target

This is almost completed going to send an update soon!

• I am cycle stacking a bit here or ovrerlapping cycles - archery is part of my hunter cycle so starting with a recurve bow and going to start practicing.

Book for this cycle: I listed to Shop Class as SoulCraft by Matthew B. Crawford. My biggest takeaways were:

• Tacit knowledge is as important as explicit (encodable) knowledge. For example: A naturalist or tracker seeing something in a forrest you cannot or a mechanic turning a nut just right to get a certain result. You can only know so much by thinking. There is a kind of knowing only possible by doing and with experience. The Western world values credentialism and signaling that you know something. But when you build or create something, you don’t have to talk about your knowledge or point to a degree on the wall, you point to something real that is the evidence of your knowing.

• There is a kind of work that reveals the reality of the world by compelling us to interact with objects and forces beyond our control. There is a compelling philosophy and even spirituality to working on things external to you. You must submit to their reality and align with it; become present to it.

I recognize I have not built a house or anything crazy here. These are small DIY projects. I have no certs or courses completed; but I can point at things and feel a sense of mastery. The shift in me has been nothing short of copernican; like if a bear became a vegetarian. I actually, by some miracle of God, KNOW where to go in Home Depot. My relationship with Home Depot has changed completely. It was a chore to go there before . . . now I am like a kid in a candy store.

I think probably the biggest achievement of this cycle is that it has stoked within me a desire to build, to do more cycles and try new things. And I found myself after I built the chicken coop, counteracting the former narrative I had. Entering into family conversations about projects or even starting the conversation with a question of my own. As I built, I began to find myself telling the former reactive version of myself that I will figure it out, remain calm and take a breath or break. I think my sister the therapist would call this “re-parenting” myself. Or to say it from a spiritual perspective, God is fathering me. And not in the way I expected; not by moving mountains for me, but by handing me a shovel.

I guess after all, like I mentioned in my first essay, there indeed was a more capable version of me waiting on the other side of the lake. Again, I don’t want to over dramatize these small DIY projects. These are small things, but they are my things. These days, I am beginning to tell that former version of myself that a handier man has arrived.