Hemming

I just bought new pants. Unless I buy capri pants, hemming is required before I can actually wear new pants. This step makes me wonder if I'm too fat or too short. Probably both, I conclude. Nevertheless, unless I'm feeling flush and want to pay a seamstress, the desire (or need) to put them on requires I get out my thick plastic bag of miscellaneous sewing items, including all the extra buttons I dutifully save but never intend to replace. Black thread, needle and maybe a few pins are all I ever use.

I'm actually pretty good at a hem stitch. It's one of the few I know and the only one I employ. Once I'm settled in my comfy swivel chair, pants in hand and excess legging upturned, I give myself over to the zen-like methodical soothing of the slow stitching process. Measure out the thread. Ease the end through the needle eye. Knot the end. Penetrate the inseam and pull the needle through the edge of the factory-made hemline. Knot it up a bit more and proceed around the perimeter. As I slowly wind my way to the crease and then on to the next seam I marvel at my skill.

Each infrequent episode of hemming I ponder the origin of this skill. Was it my required sewing class in third-grade in Kingswood, New South Wales? Was it sixth grade Home Economics in Norman, Oklahoma? I know I didn't learn it from my mother or hers. Then I think about the only non-makeshift sewing box I ever owned. The memory takes me back to New South Wales. It was a required school item so mother bought me a standard issue floral, soft cloth covered thatched basket with one knob at the front that the looped latch slid over to secure all the precious pins, needles and multiple colored threads. I was so proud of it. At the time I'd never owned anything quite so pretty.

The sewing box was purchased shortly after our arrival in Australia and though mother had a pre-assigned teaching post in the suburbs we lived in a downtown Sydney hotel until an apartment was secured near her school. In the interim a daily commuter train took us near our new school. Within a week, I stepped off the train and neglected to pick up my sewing box on the way out. Off it went with the train. Never to be seen again. By me at least. I cried that day. And mother didn't buy me a new kit. I don't remember how I got by in sewing class. Those memories are tucked in the unaccessible creases of my brain. And maybe that's where my memory of learning to hem is. It's tangled up with a multitude of humiliating moments in a ball I don't have the patience or desire to untangle. As long as I can recall that hem stitch though, I've retained all I need from that knotty experience.

The Electrician in Me

I put up a new light fixture in our dining area today. Benedicta is now doing the clean up as I played the electrician role and left the scene as soon as all the wires and screws were securely in place. The fixture I replaced provided nothing but a dim shadow of light for ten years and then went completely dead about three years ago. Yes, I said three years. We've been puttering around in the dark all that time. We actually bought the new fixture on a trip to IKEA in Red Hook 9 months ago. Let's just say I'm a reluctant fixer-upper.

Day after day after month after month I said, "I'm going to put that fixture up next week."But next week the mood didn't strike quite right or I worked too much or I was out of town. Until today. Before breakfast I said, "I'm going to put that fixture up today." And after fortifying myself with leftover chinese, Benedicta got the ladder out and I went to work.

I love the action of handyman's chores: the physicality of putting something together; the achievement of improving functionality; the rush of possible danger lurking in those exposed wires. It feels like real work, getting something tangibly done as opposed to pushing papers or cooking or cleaning which has to be redone day after day. With a home improvement project you immerse yourself in the task and emerge with a lasting accomplishment. I can slap myself on the back and say, "Look what I did." Bragging rights extend for the life of the project.

But I think those bragging rights are part of the hold up in getting to home improvement projects. It goes like this. 1) Bragging: Wow, that ceiling still looks pretty good, I don't think we'll have to repaint that for years. 2) Acknowledge need for new project: I really need to touch up the paint in the bathroom though. 3) Procrastination: I'll get to that after I install the new light fixture. 4) Avoidance: I can't install the light fixture this week because ... 5) Action: Install the light fixture. 6) Admire: Wow, look at all the light in this space, this is amazing. How handy I am! The bragging will continue because when it stops I'll have to move on to stage 2. And that will mean several years of contemplating that wall in the bathroom before I get back to stage 6. But when I'm in the middle of the action phase I will love how handy I feel. Too bad it's going to take years to get there. But until then, at least I'll have light.