When a chair is not just a place to sit

IF IT’S NOT BROKE—DON’T FIX IT AND IF IT IS BROKE DON’T JUST FIX IT ENJOY IT By the end of Saturday-mixed with the beginning with Sunday my little corner of the universe was in ‘disrepair. “my Chair”—I don’t know how mediaeval this tradition is that a male adopts a chair in the cave/house/apartment and it is “his”…but it has happened in all of my lifetime and as far as I can tell it has been happening since cave dwellers selected that there big rock in the corner because there was a little rock to prop his feet up on nearby. Well, by the end of Saturday my chair was broken. It is one of these glider-rockers and kind of a minimal design which I like. Well. without sharing all the details one of the mechanisms that rely on a couple screws staying in place so that a roller thing stays in a hole hidden from view had finally worn out their screw holes and come loose thus, releasing the tension and letting the roller fall out of its appointed spot. Now I didn’t write all of this to explain chair engeneering so I’ll get to the point on that. I don’t see anyway in the world that the people who designed this couldn't predict this would happen eventually and the chair would “break.” Here’s what they didn’t imagine. They didn’t imagine that a blind guy would take an hour to figure out the mechanism and then have his daughter come into the project. They didn’t expect that sam daughter to figure out what the dad was talking about so quickly and they didn’t expect the daughter to have “tiny” hands. Now are they a little smaller than usual? Maybe, but for sewing in delicate spaces and fixing chairs that have been poorly designed they are just the right size. So at one point in the night we had fixed the chair the way it was designed. Now that was a mighty proud moment for a dad. Of course, the unknown source of the screw problem wasn't evident until I used the chair again and the screw fell out or a hole that was completely worn away so that it would not hold the screw in place no matter how cleverly we had managedto fix it.… But the repair had been completed insofar as we did it in the manner they intended and that was a great source of joy. Well…sort of—you see while moving the chair I accidentally knocked one of my guitars over and just in the perfect angle that broke apart it essentially the same what that It had broken about 5 months ago. So here it was ..Saturday night and my chair and my “songwriting” guitar were both broken and I had already decided I was far beyond my “complaining” time for that day… so I sat with the guitar pieces and glued away. Will it work? i believe it will..but like the chair it may be done…however. I don’t believe either is beyond repair. and here’s the peace and joy part. It may be that neither my chair or this good old guitar ever gets back itoriginal sound or function, it’s ok…. the joy has been in the effort. Sure you are going to have to throw outra few things in your life like our popcorn maker that randomly pops the top off spewing popcorn all over the kitchen like some type of Orville Redenbacher (sp) volcano. . but other things we might just be throwing away and with them a chance to learn with them. As an added bonus… if you decide to fix things…you have a justification for an expanded”junk drawer” because there are tow maintops of things in most junk drawers. the first is a group of objects that can only fix a particular thing and “maybe you'll have one of those again and then wow you had just what it took. Or the second type of thing that gets into the junk drawer —bits and pieces of materials that can fix about anything(duct tape, paper clips, the bread ties if you remember to throw them in if you hit the bottom of a loaf… and a crazy assortment keys.. from locks you might still have—-maybe. Oaky time to finish this up. i’ll write a whole post on my junk drawer someday…but for today there was a great joy in having my daughter work on the chair and fix it… There was a mechanize design flaw…. but she figured out a good solution. And as far as the guitar goes? Well if you worship a deity that has the power to bind”elmer’s” glue then give a few hail mary’s .. Either way life is good ..I have a chair that I will eventuallyfix or scrap (you know stuff for the junk drawer. but what will never change is my memory of how my daughter jumped in and fixed that chair..because even if it ends up being mostly a piece of firewood, the memory will always be perfect and that my friends is the source of Peace and Joy.. I will take forward. Have a great Monday…