Competence

I fell in love over power tools.
I met my daughter’s father in Arizona. He was living in the desert with me, my son’s dad and a few other friends in exchange for helping to remodel a school bus to my design.

Now, I did not grow up using tools. My parents are intellectuals, and I had no one in my life to model hands-on skills. Even so, I tought myself arts and crafts: needlepoint, crochet, origami, painting, sculpting and drawing, but I had no clue of how to use the most basic of construction tools.

I plowed gamely in, but quickly got frustrated. Questioning the guys on how to use a tool was met by an exasperated sigh, an eyeroll and a paragraph long dissertation that left me totally clueless.

On the other hand, when I asked Nero, he’d smile and show me–and I found that I almost always got it right away! I think I fell in love with competence. With the idea that I could be competent.

He never had any doubt, as he put the screwdriver/sawzall/drill/welding-torch in my hand, that I could do it.

And I soon learned not to doubt myself either.

I fell out of love with him.

But I’m still in love with power tools.

And competence.