My Father's Journal: "Under My Hands"

Under My Hands

By Ken Muir

 

So much of memory is images locked in my brain, recollections flipping one to another in that cerebral footlocker.  How vivid, how strong they are.

 

Oddly, I find that among the strongest are tactile memories, the feel of so many materials, so many jobs, under my hands. 

 

Wood, sheetrock, PVC, stone, tools, wires, paint, leaves, soil….the list is nearly endless. 

 

I can still feel them there, each one, each substance, each a connection to work performed. 

 

For a man who made a decent living as a manipulator of ideas and words, this fascination with works of the hands is a bit odd, I guess. 

But somehow it completed me, it was a side of me that needed to find expression. It gave me an inner balance, a breadth which I somehow required.

 

And at bottom, I suppose, it gave small flesh to the idea of my being a pale, paltry imitation of the Renaissance Man………always a goal of mine but an outcome never achieved. 

 

Perhaps, however, I’ve made a good run at “jack of all trades.”