the carpenter

The other day S and I took a slight detour onto West Temple Street. I told her about the green house and the big factory out back. About Germany and kitchen cabinets. About learning to drive in the parking lot. About running my fingers over the wood furniture in the entry and sifting through stacks and stacks of blueprints. About choosing library chairs, picking paint colors and the hope that Grandpa would approve.
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In the Avenues of Salt Lake, under sycamore trees with large round trunks, tucked away betwixt historic dutch colonials with flared eaves and Tudors with authentic-looking daub and wattle, is a square building with square windows and a square door the color of French lavender. The door has a gold handle and a gold kick-plate, tarnished with time and wear. Trimmed hedges that nest side-by-side, slowly grow towards one another, stretching to encircle a small fountain in the courtyard.

Inside the door is a large room with square walls full of beautiful artwork in frames of gold. Pottery turned on a round wheel is a top a square glass table. The light bends and bounces off the glaze and onto the glass. Sculpture, in all shapes, sizes, lines and contours create contrast against the squareness of the structure as a whole.

In the back of the square building, in a right-angled room, sits a German man who speaks in soft tones, a master at his trade. He spends his days with wood between his hands and sawdust at his feet as he sands and sculpts. Running his fingers along the grain, he fits dovetails, the corners interlocking into each other as if the pieces were never separated. No two pieces are alike. When he is finished, he takes a Polaroid picture and places the square photograph in a square pouch inside a square binder and begins anew.

Today I parked my car alongside the curb underneath the sycamores. I walked along the path and in through the courtyard. I pulled on the gold handle, the tips of my toe touching the kick-plate as I pushed the door open. I paused in the entry to notice a new piece; to run my fingers along the grain of the wood and to notice what was framed in gold above it. I walked through the big square room to the room in the back. It smelled of varnish and veneers. Suddenly, I was in another woodworker's shop, run by another man who hails from the same country. A man who spoke in soft tones and spent his days sketching and sanding and splitting veneers, creating beautiful works of art in wood, one at a time.