Sitting, sipping coffee and reading a book, in a warm house
with a cold, sun-sharp windy April afternoon blowing and glaring outside, with
nowhere I need to go and nothing I need to do, feeling truly at home for the
first time in years. Not visiting, not commuting, not counting down the days
until the next slog up 95 and the long groaning churn of the ferry ride across
Nantucket Sound, but simply living, secure and settled. Back to work again on
Monday, after the long Easter weekend, but that’s fine. It’s work I know and
even enjoy. The ease with which I slipped into this new painting crew, side by
side with the gang of tough old carpenters, surprised me a little. I always
knew that painting houses was a trade I could take up anywhere, but this is
more than a job. The building trades have their own lively Freemasonry, and
it’s as effortless to talk about favorite brushes(we all favor Wooster) and
despised “luxury” paint brands (I’m looking at you, Farrow & Ball) as it
was to chat about point-of-view or image patterning with a friendly stranger in
an MFA dining hall.
The world of the construction site is so familiar, with the
universal tang of sawdust, the tangled snakes of power cords, the grinding saws,
and the bad music, that it hardly seems like you’ve come to a new place at all.
Even the characters remain the same: the seldom-seen but exigent GC; the
strutting and hilariously self-important architect, the demanding but oblivious owners; the same
fuck-ups and epic stories of fuck-ups past. There’s the inevitable cabinet
maker with OCD, the painter with the drinking problem, the landscaper waiting
for his green card. We all understand each other, we’ve all been there and
we’re all still here. I feel like I could join a crew in Athens or Tokyo or
Helsinki and it would be the same. It’s a fraternity and you have to earn your
place in it. The quiet look of approval the first time you cut a ceiling or
glaze a window tells you what you most want to know – not that you can do the
job, but that you’re welcome to the club. You’ve already paid the dues, in
spilled paint and broken panes of antique glass, in the twenty-hour weekends
ahead of the furniture or the floor guys, in the all-nighters under the
halogens to get that final check before Christmas.
It’s nothing special – just another day on the job. We’re
all in it for the long haul, picking up where we left off, stripping it off to
put it back on, finishing the job, and starting the next one. It’s a living,
and surprisingly, I realize after more than thirty years, it’s a life.
