Author: Tim Gels

With both hands holding the pry bar, I raised it to head-height, then drove the straight end into the joint of the stair railing with a solid thunk.  The wood separated slightly from the post to which it was attached, so I took the curved end of the bar and pounded it into the newly-opened crack with my right hand.  Lifting the lever with both hands, I separated the railing from the post completely and the wooden structure fell to the ground some two feet below with a satisfying thud.

“That was cool.  I didn’t even hurt myself,” I said aloud to no one but my dog.

—

I’m what one could graciously call a slow starter when it comes to projects.  One less gracious would call me a procrastinator, and with no grace at all the question would be, “Why don’t you just get started?” 

My favorite explanation–though it’s not an excuse–for someone like me is that I’m a perfectionist who’s reluctant (read: afraid) to get started because of the commitment to something that might not turn out as I want it to.

Something, in this case, like a set of stairs off of our back porch that needs to be rebuilt.  If I didn’t take them down soon, nature would do so through the even-slower process of decomposition.  That’s less than ideal.

So, this was the day and I knew I’d have to jump in.  I don’t have the materials yet to rebuild the stairs, but the first step was to take the railings off the old ones, so I decided to just go for it.

I opted to eschew power tools since there were only two cuts to be made.  Standing in my woodshop, I grabbed a hand saw designed for firewood, decided it would do, and walked out to the back porch.  With a lot less effort than dragging out a power saw, I cut the lower supports of the railings off at ground level.

With the lower supports cut, I used the pry bar to remove the structures from the posts at their upper ends.  Piece of cake.  One trip with the wheelbarrow to take everything out to the street for pickup, and step one was done in less than 30 minutes.

With the railings gone, the project is a lot harder to put off, and I don’t see it being long before I can check it off the list.

Oh, yeah…the list.  This is my summer to knock it out, I can feel it!

“So, I’ve got a question for you.  It’s not a hard question, but it’s still a question.  Are you ready?”

As I spoke, the two students I was learning with looked back at me through the screen of our video conference.  Their faces showed apprehension and curiosity, and I had to imagine they were wondering what kind of question I might ask on this, the first day of our ad hoc quarantine-distance-learning-wish-we-could-meet-in-person writing workshop.

I continued: “Why do we write?”

Both girls, sisters, had looks on their faces that said, “Huh?”  

I leaned just a little bit closer to the screen and asked again, “I know it’s a simple question, but why do we write?  Why do we write?” I spoke slowly as I asked my question the final time. I know it’s not a hard question, but it’s not one that’s always easy to answer off the cuff.  I knew that.

The younger sister spoke first.  She started slowly, but over the course of just a few words she gained confidence.

“So we can talk to people, and answer questions,” she answered.  Looking back, I think that’s what she said. Honestly, I was a little bit nervous too.

I waited, and the older sister gave her answer shortly after.

“To express our feelings,” she said, also gaining confidence.

“Okay, I can go with that,” I said. “So, when we express our feelings, is that like what we might write in a diary?”  

She thought for a second, then answered that it was.

I turned, if that’s possible in a video conference, to her younger sister. “So, let me ask you this: If I was writing a shopping list, would I be expressing my feelings?”

Realizing where this was going, the older sibling quickly chimed in, “Yes, you’re expressing how you feel about what you want to eat.”

Sigh and smile.  You know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, this whole teaching writing thing.

After a laugh, the younger said no, a shopping list wasn’t expressing our feelings.

I know there are a lot of answers to the question, “Why do we write?” and I shared my own.  “The reason we write…the whole reason we write…is so someone can read what we wrote.  That’s it. That’s why we write. The someone might be ourselves, if it was a grocery list, but that’s why we write.  We write so someone can read it.”

Now, I’m a basics kind of guy.  There’s a lot to writing, and it takes a long time to even come close to mastering the art and skill.  There are many reasons to write, but ultimately we write to make a record that someone is going to read.  We write for an audience, even if it’s ourselves. At least, that’s what I think.

For better or worse, my two writers didn’t argue, and both seemed ready to move on.  I’m looking forward to seeing how the next few months go, and I’m pretty sure we’ll all be happy with the outcome at the end.

—

A quick word of explanation: During this quarantine, I’m learning alongside two sisters whom I’ve known since the older one was a student in my third-grade class, some five years ago.  I like to write, they want to learn, so it’s a good thing for all of us. I think so, anyway.

If you want to, I’d love to see your answer to the question: “Why do we write?”

On days like yesterday, I think about growing up in the southeastern part of Ohio, just north of Dayton and about 30 miles from the Indiana line.  Lots of flat land, lots of open spaces, and lots of potential for what we now refer to as “severe weather.”

I don’t know why, but I don’t think I remember ever hearing the term severe weather.  We just–as I remember it–called it thunderstorms and, of course, tornadoes.

Twisters, sometimes, but usually tornadoes.

In the mid-seventies, when I was still fairly young, a devastating tornado hit the nearby city of Xenia, some 30 miles southeast of where I grew up.  Not too close, but close enough that the “Xenia Tornado” was the measuring stick with which all spring, summer, and fall weather events were measured.  

Even though the area where I now live suffered massive destruction during a “super outbreak” of tornadoes in 2011, Xenia still comes to my mind on days like yesterday.  With today’s technology, tornadoes are still unpredictable, but only in that we don’t know specifically where they’ll hit.  

On days like yesterday, we’ve known about the danger for a while.  Three or four days earlier we knew the conditions would be right. Cold air moving in from the north, warm moist air moving in from the south, and a pretty good idea of where the two would collide.  We knew.

We nervously move through the early hours of the day, on days like yesterday.  The air is calm, almost peaceful, as if the local atmosphere doesn’t know of the pressure changes that would soon pull it away.  Without an apparent reason why, though, clouds start to form by mid-morning, thunder is heard in the distance, and the leaves begin to rustle.

Some folks like me start to feel an urge to turn on the TV, comforted by the broadcast of benign programming, anything other than the local meteorologist providing play by play as the weather marches in from the west.  Here in north Alabama, it’s almost always from the west, especially on days like yesterday.

We knew it was coming, and it did.  When it was all said and done, my immediate area, just south of the Tennessee line, suffered nothing worse than nearly four inches of rain falling in just a few short hours.  Some broken branches, a few power outages, and we were able to sleep soundly by ten o’clock.  

After days like yesterday, one looks to the news to find out who wasn’t so lucky.  Six tornadoes, ranging in strength from EF-0 to EF-2, all within 100 miles of where I live.  More than 60 tornadoes across the south stretching from Texas to the Carolinas, millions of dollars in damage, and at least 32 people who’ve seen their last severe weather event.  May their families find peace and comfort.

That’s what it’s like, after days like yesterday.