I got frustrated with something today, I think if I were a very different person I might say I was triggered by something; and for the first time I found solace in my shop.

It wasn’t right away. Right away I putzed around and felt impotent and confused and unsure of how to feel better. Maybe I’d play Zelda? Or fart around on the computer? It all felt wasteful and irritating after a long hot day.

So I decided I’d do something productive and go sand, there’s always something to sand in there.

I did a lot more than sand. I actually had a good bit of success with one of the more complex techniques required by the table I’m building. I made a few mistakes, but it turned out okay. 

Generally woodworking has been a source of upset, not a solution for it. I’ve gotten better lately about not letting my mistakes and troubles in the shop bother me so much, but the notion of it actively calming me down is novel. It’s new, but it’s welcome, and I’m not complaining. 

While I have certainly improved as a woodworker, I don’t think that’s it. I’m still making mistakes, lots of them, but I’m rolling with them. The process for me might once have been a strict and unrelenting march in one direction: towards the project as I had envisioned it, usually in a 3D model. Nowadays, I have an idea, and sometimes even a model, and I build from the ground up. I let each step inform the next and change it as I go.

The first mistake forces the next step to adapt to it, that step lays an entirely different foundation for the next problem, et cetera. So far I’ve ended up not with a giant pile of mistakes, but something far more human than a piece of furniture I thought I totally understood before I even set out to make it.