Recently, I did a week-long Carpentry for Women class at the Yestermorrow Design/Build School in Warren, Vermont. I sat down to try to write about it, to capture some of how it felt to be there, and what came out was far bigger than a blog post should ever, ever be. I wanted to do justice to the week, not say simply, “yeah, it was cool” (although it was). So I’ve chopped it up, and will post some of it here, in a series of six sections. Yes, six. I don’t expect anyone to read it all. My mother will. The rest of you are free to go. But if you’re curious, here you are:
I am sitting alone at a picnic table. I clutch my knitting, pretending to concentrate on the needles and yarn. Already, in the few minutes I’ve been here, I have dropped a couple of stitches, even though the project I’m working on, an easy ribbed scarf, couldn’t be simpler.
Near me, a group of twenty-somethings plays hackysack. Others sprawl casually over the lawn, drinking beer out of mismatched glasses. One guy strums a guitar. I’m trying not to look too closely at anyone, but I swear I just saw a man walk by wearing a T-shirt with an image of a massive Hummer, beneath which are the words, “Sorry ‘bout your penis.”
Someone offers me a glass of wine, and I nod, gratefully.
“Yes, please,” I gulp. I feel out of place. I feel old.
It’s the evening of my welcome dinner at Yestermorrow Design/Build School, which for 25 years has taught sustainable design to both amateurs and professionals. I’m here to take an introductory Carpentry for Women class, something I signed up for many months ago when it didn’t seem real.
Suddenly tonight, after I kissed my children goodbye and got in the car, it became real, and I felt terrified.
Yestermorrow sits by the side of Route 100, a two-lane country highway that runs through the Mad River Valley, some of the loveliest, most pastoral landscape Vermont has to offer. The 38-campus is beautiful, filled with forest and field, wildflowers and mountain vistas.
Nearby, I see a stone wall curving gracefully into an arch — the evidence of a stonework class. Across the field, chickens peck beside a homemade chicken coop next to a garden filled with organic bounty. In one direction, I see a bench made from bent wood, in another, a solar shower and composting toilet. There are fluid cob garden walls, straw bale cabins, earthen ovens, and a tree house that is the stuff of any child’s fantasy — enormous and round, with a cedar shingles, cathedral-type ceilings, spacious enough to accommodate an entire classroom of little ones. These are only the things that remain on campus, of course; throughout Vermont, there are boathouses, concert bandstands, children’s playgrounds, timber-framed homes, green roofs, garden sheds, and buildings to make cheese. All of them made by hand by Yestermorrow students, interns, and staff.
Sitting here, I am intensely aware that the question will arise at some point, “why did you decide to take this class?” For the moment, the best answer I have is this: because I don’t know how to do anything.
That’s not entirely true, of course. Once upon a time — a million years ago, it seems — I learned stuff that was mostly useful under the harsh fluorescent lights of the modern-day office. I became master of the press release, the flow chart, the well-placed bullet point. In recent years, though, I’ve left that behind, with no small amount of relief. Since then, I have been trying to learn practical things, the skills one never gets to learn in a cubicle. The fact that I’m holding a piece of knitting, even this simple scarf, is evidence of that I’ve had some success. I’ve learned other things, too: I can make a batch of yogurt from scratch. I can build a fire in my wood stove. I can grow tomatoes in a container. I have made my own all-purpose cleaner for the home, and this spring, I began learning to use an axe on saplings.
Sure, I can do some things. But it’s already clear that people here — these people who look so young — know how to do so much more.
Watching these people from the corner of my eye — people who look like they’ve never given much of a thought to children’s schedules, to preschool dropoffs, to family meals, gymnastics classes, pediatrician’s appointments, toddler toothpaste, or the other mundane business of family life — I realize, I should have come here years ago. I should have come here, done something like this, after college, back when I was busy pursuing jobs in high-rise buildings.
I could have been like these others, once. I would have loved it. So I am also thinking this: I missed my chance.
Dinner is ready. I put down my knitting, sip my a glass of wine, eat a hearty dinner on a chipped plate. I sit next to a friendly, 40-something woman from New Jersey with a thick Long Island accent, who describes her work with real estate developers — work that she recently resigned. I am unreasonably grateful to find someone who talks more easily than I.
After we eat, the Women’s Carpentry class adjourns to the library for our first meeting. We introduce ourselves, examine a sketch for the project we will build: an outdoor shed, made from rough-hewn Vermont wood. It will be used to store batteries for windpower. We flip through handouts; words like “balustrade” and “flashing” and “quarter-sawn” swim before my eyes.
Here is something I know: that not far away, in a hotel just down the road, two little girls are being tucked into beds. One, I am certain, is lying on her belly, a ratty stuffed duck tucked tightly under her arm; the other is probably twirling a wisp of hair around her tiny finger as she drifts off to sleep, her back rising and falling slowly with each breath. That is the world I know: those children, that routine. Here, in this school in the woods, surrounded by adults who build things, I am wholly out of my element.
As my fellow classmates talk, I find myself mesmerized by the bookshelves that surround us. The shelves cover three walls of the library, floor to ceiling, and are handmade from thick golden pieces of maple. They are stained with warm honey hues, and they are beautiful. Someone made these.
I remind myself that whoever did surely wasn’t put on earth knowing how to build shelves. They learned. Maybe, just maybe, I can learn something like this, too.
***
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I have been having that “missed my chance” feeling a lot lately. I don’t like it one bit.
Your writing is always worth reading, and I will read on.
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There is no sadder thing in the world than missing a chance that has a big impact in your life. It is even sadder if you missed it because you are afraid to try or do so. But what’s important now is that your best possible chance on your recovery. The best thing that we can do is to live a good life.