Next?

Windowsill is in, caulked in every way, and I got a quick coat of paint on it yesterday in the balmy prequel to today's deluge. That project is finished, except I really don't like the wambly front surface. Put it on the list to edit. Do better next time.

I've been writing my book in bits and in my mind as I do other things, and have been thinking a lot about my friend Richard's role in the process of the house. I have to write a chapter about him, but it might not make the final cut because it is really not the subject, but part of the backstory.

Richard showed up in my life through a mutual friend's work project, and I was looking for love at the time and got a big attraction. I was also looking for a way to remodel this house, and I asked him to make a bid. I never ended up getting any others, because as we conversed about it, he said a fateful thing. Of course I don't remember his exact words, but this is how he talks:

"Some people do their own work. When the owner is building, the permit department treats the project differently." Okay, that is how I talk. He might say something about the bastards not being quite so hard on an owner-built project, and something about how there were lots of options, but what I didn't hear was essential. I didn't hear that any part of it was too hard for me to do on my own. I didn't hear "You can't" in any words, and that has been true for the last twenty-some years.

We've had thousands of complicated talks with times of annoyance or crush getting into the edges, but over the years I have been able to drop most of my defensiveness and delusion regarding the way men interact with women over projects involving tools. Richard has been my mentor.

I didn't recognize the role, as I can't think of any other mentor like him in my life. He says things like "I don't have to be right," and "so that's how you decided to do it." He always agreed to do the parts that seemed way out of my reach, like tying the two roofs (old and new) together, and he gave me a wonderful book on framing which I still reference. He checked in frequently without it seeming like he was checking on me.

Sometimes I paid him and sometimes I didn't. I have some quirks about money. My initial budget for building half a house, with kitchen and bathroom, was $13,000. He helped me make the plans, which I drew myself, he gave me essential details about how to navigate the permit process, and he was wonderful with sources, referrals to experts, and answering dumb questions. After awhile I didn't even think of my questions as dumb anymore.

We're funny together. I talk differently with him, adopting that "guy" attitude and inflections that make me seem dressed in overalls and chewing on a straw, channeling my farm hand side. Long over my crush, I don't act like a girl (whatever that means) around him, I act like a contemporary. I feel handy, accomplished, and able to converse in builderspeak. I'm not embarrassed about my lack of skills, and he somehow has gotten into my brain with his logic and extremely solid ground. I frequently feel overwhelmed with the scope of a project, and his voice reminds me that a house is just a box, and I am able to reduce the project to stages that seem doable.

My creative process with these things involves procrastination while I visualize each step and figure out what I have to do first, in the middle, and at the finish, and while I look online and in books to see how other people do similar projects. Sometimes I launch without the proper preparation, like with the sidewalk. I don't know what I don't know yet, so when the concrete delivery is scheduled, Richard always shows up a couple of hours early. With the sidewalk, he brought  tools I didn't even know existed, the ones to make the grooves and the flat margins around the edge, and he was there when my two young men and I got behind the pour and almost had a hardened pile in the middle. We managed, but without him there I would have a cracked, roller-coaster path with lots of mess around it.

We would sit somewhere and gaze at the project while we chatted, and every so often he would say, "Well, what you could do..." or "One way you could do it would be..." or "Some guys might..." He must have had to bite his tongue every time to keep out every single note of discouragement he might transmit. It didn't seem like he was being careful, but now when I notice some of the awkward solutions I applied, I think he showed amazing discretion and strength. I did some boneheaded things!

Even though it took fifteen years and is not exactly finished, there is no doubt it is impressive that I completed a house and am living in it, spent very little money (maybe $30,000) to do it, and learned how to do plumbing, wiring, roofing, carpentry, sheetrock, all of it, from library books and trial and error. There were other people who lent a hand to tip up a wall or give me a piece of information I needed, but having Richard in the project with me made all the difference. I depended on him without even being aware of it.

I say that I built this by myself and I feel like I did, but there Richard is in many of the pictures, walking the top plate, hanging out the fascia, backing up the forms so the concrete wouldn't spill out. He never shook his head in dismay at my ignorance, though no doubt he hid a few smiles in his shirt collar. He got frustrated, and there were times we couldn't talk about a few things, but the connection persisted and deepened and I know he is one of the few people who really gets me, and is capable of true support, not just of me, but of anyone. He's got his curmudgeonly side, but sometimes when he talks about values and honesty and right and wrong, he approaches the role of spiritual guide as well. He does some deep thinking.

I can't say that I understand men very well,or the dynamics of male-female relationships, but I feel like he didn't treat me like a woman, and this was a glaring difference from they guys at Jerry's or the inspectors who had to come every six months (they tried, but sexism is just built in). He treated me like the artisan I am, the generalist who is curious about how to do everything and wants to try it, but has to do that exploration alone and at her own speed. He never pushed, he never did an insensitive action like tossing aside my work to replace it with his, he never was anything but supportive. And I didn't make that easy.

Quite simply, without Richard I would never have done the project, and one of the most significant life experiences (second only to parenting my son) would not have opened to me. I wouldn't be the person I am now. The amount of satisfaction and challenge and comfort and prosperity that I have gained over the last few decades gets partially logged into his column. And let it be said that he worked with me on lots of other things besides my house, my OCF booth for starters.

I'm not skilled at mentoring, though I have tried to encourage many people in many ways, and use some of what I observed, but I'm not just a taker either. He recently wanted a sailboat, and I lent him a bunch of books on sailing and am excited for him that he got one and is learning to sail. That is another of my interest areas and I'll enjoy talking sailing with him too. He's got grandchildren, so we don't see much of each other right now, but we're still there. I owe him, but he's not the type to add up life debts and expect payment. He would probably counter with some ways I opened up his life, subtle things I didn't notice. Such is the nature of complex, long friendships, that most of the big ways we appreciate the person are never spoken.

I have to find a way in the book to convey the weight of his help without it seeming like we were partners or that he was in charge. It was always my project, my house, and my mistakes. He certainly didn't make any.
When I look at my living room ceiling, which is smooth and level with only that one place where the sheetrock tape came loose, I have the lovely memory of looking at it with him when it sagged six inches and was ragged with long strips of derelict wallpaper and spider webs, and we delightedly hit on the idea of putting the laser level in the middle of my screenprinting carousel, which was in the room at the time, and rotated it slowly, marking the level on the walls. He got that chuckle at the elegance of the solution, at the potential of a finished ceiling, at the progress of finally being able to tackle one of the knottiest problems left to finish. It was just one of the moments when we both felt great, a moment right up there with looking up at the Country Fair trees as they swayed and groaned and speculating about what we would do when the big ash tree finally fell on the booth. Which it did.Talk about elegant solutions.

And what a joy it was to have someone to share that with. When I finished the sill, and the shingles on the OCF booth this summer, I took pictures and posted them to the faceless internet, but I was looking around for Richard. What a priceless gift he gave me, a twenty-year gift of standing next to me in pride and alliance.

So maybe the dedication page for Richard Whyte. He's not the story, but he certainly had my back.