part i
i received a text message
from my dad
“today,
I sold the workbench
at which I produced all of my work
over the past 45 years.
it feels bittersweet,
like I’ve just cut off my right hand.”
i don’t know where
the sweetness is in that
maybe it’s in relief
a burden no longer with him
when i was a kid
when people would ask me
“what do you want to be
when you grown up”
i’d answer without thinking
“a jeweler”
the words “like my dad” said silently in my head
i meant it
one summer
when i was twelve or thirteen
i told my dad
“it’s time you start teaching me already”
and to his credit he did
part ii
when my dad started teaching me
how to make jewelry
he began by giving me the exercises
he had been given as an adult
in a german trade school
“this is hard”
i said
as i tried and failed
to saw a straight line
to make a plate of brass
perfectly square
“did you think
it was going to be easy?”
part iii
the bench he just sold
shaped him and was shaped by him
i mean that
in the most literal sense
his right shoulder
is lower than his left
from always sawing and filing
with his right hand
the knobs of the drawers
and wooden surfaces
are smoothed and softened
by the oils in his hands
growing up
my dad would often work six days a week
coming home smelling like machine oil
he loved what he did
and seeing him go to work every day
showed me that being an artist is simply that
showing up
going to work everyday
not everyone has that example
for me it makes the impossibility
of making a living as an artist feel possible
if this dutch immigrant
the son of holocaust survivors
who came here with nothing could do it
there’s nothing stopping me
part iv
while i understand
why he sold his bench
there’s a sadness in knowing
i won’t sit at it
carrying on the craft
he dedicated his life to
carrying on the legacy of
a master
who hit ten thousand hours
and realized he hadn’t even started
and yet
that spirit
of mastery
shaped me
that spirit
i will always carry
even without sitting at your bench
i have been shaped by it