I don’t look useful.
I think I look tousled most of the time, a style most often seen on wild brunettes wearing long white men’s shirts walking barefoot into kitchens to get a cup of morning coffee in someone else’s apartment in 1980’s films. In contrast, I am more the “tousled” of a 4 year old boy getting his hair affectionately ruffled by someone calling him “pal” in a 1940’s black and white movie.
It is not that my hair is anywhere near tousleable really - my wife calls my entire sense of style “hobo chic” - severely jostled, thrown together and a bit worn at the collars, cuffs, and elbows like there’s a photoshop filter lightly blurring every edge.(I, of course, think I look like a time traveling science hero.)
In any case, I don’t look USEFUL. Perhaps a tool belt would help.
(Or a screwdriver.)
I try to be useful, actually. My own daughter was surprised that I could caulk. I had to take out the kitchen sink to replace the p-trap pipe beneath it; she respectfully asked, “Are you ok?”…presumably because I wasn’t reading a comic book or playing instruments to myself like a madman like normal.
“Yeah, I’m good. I should be done in a little bit.”
To her credit she did not ask me if I “knew what I was doing” as she rightfully assumed that I didn’t, but would figure it out eventually.
“Ok.” she said, walking away. But after it was repaired, she admitted that she had not been entirely convinced that I could put it all back together again.
“Did you think we were gonna have to call a plumber?” I asked her.
“No. Mom would figure it out.”
Hera is right. Zoe looks more than useful, she appears industrious. Approaching tasks with a steely eye, whether designing, driving, or cutting bokchoi, Zoe is the train you should know better than to stand in front of.
I am unapologetically grateful to be able to do things, to have things to do, to make things and learn things everyday.
I’ve always been taught to leave every place better than I found it. Straighten that book, pick up that scrap of paper, wipe down the sink, leave no trace, like a careful camper or a cat burglar.
Engaging my mother in the common childhood family exchange of:
Parent: What are you doing?
Child: Ugh! There’s nothing to do!
would have shortened my lifespan by eons. “There’s always something to do” was the figurative “Bless this house “ sign above our front door. If you can’t clean something, repair something. Nothing broken, then make something or learn something. Down time meant doing something while sitting down. Quiet time meant doing something, quietly.
So one of my favorite books was the “Fix it Yourself” manual by Reader’s Digest. Read it cover to cover (reading was doing something). So now I can replace the flush float in the bathroom, and swap out the car battery, and install a light system in a bookcase. That book is probably the reason that I dont enjoy having things done for me so much. I never wait for repairmen and I like to cook more than I like to eat at restaurants.
I do cook about 36.5% of the time at home: the meals are always filling, if not spectacular. That’s useful, I suppose. Utility implies necessity. Something needs doing and the something just floats in spacetime, suspended until accomplished. Sometimes that something is a sink filled with dishes. Sometimes it’s somebody’s 5th grade math homework. I’m appreciative of the fact that things need to be done, which is even better when, quite obviously, there is a great deal to be done.
But am I useful? I don’t know. Maybe I’m handy…
…ah, well. Baby steps.
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