“Well, at least you have a good story, “ Dane said as he smiled.
I looked down at my thumb, finally healing after ten days of Neosporin and multiple Band-Aids. Dane was right- I did have a good story. I’m just not sure it was worth it.
A week and a half ago, storms threatened to roll in at 9 PM. Not a problem, except my Christmas tree sat tied to my Jeep. At 7 PM I left Shannon to get the girls ready for bed while I rummaged through my tools to find a saw for the base of the tree. Softly at first, a pitter patter of rain serenaded from the roof. Two hours early. I flashbacked to a year ago when it took no less than forty-five minutes to cut through the base of the tree with my butter knife of a hacksaw. This could get ugly.
Fighting against time, I raced out to cut the tree loose. The rain fell steadily now. Rather than work in the storm, I dragged the tree onto the covered back deck and heaved it onto our glass top patio table. Great. This might actually be fun. I hate sawing the tree with a dull blade, but at least I’m dry and the rain adds ambiance. Classic Clark Griswold speak before the fall.
I started to saw. And saw. And saw. The term “chipping away” might be appropriate here. I was the kid who asks “are we there yet” two hours in on a drive from New York City to Los Angeles. An hour later and only halfway through the trunk, I realized I had all but missed putting the girls to bed. I invited the family to read their bedtime stories on the porch swing.
Now I had an audience. Lightening flashed in the distance. The harder the rain fell, the harder I sawed. I turned into the big bad wolf. It was time to huff and puff and snap this trunk off. I changed my strategy to short, thirty second bursts with the saw. A blister broke open on my hand. The girls needed to go to bed. This night needed to end. I gave the trunk one final violent pull and drag with the saw.
Crack! Not thunder, but rather the glass table which responded to my efforts. It folded underneath me and shattered all over the deck.
My arms burned, my hand bled, and forty-five minutes of glass shards awaited clean up. Worst of all, I easily snapped the end of the trunk off, meaning I likely had no need for the last charge.
My night was the glass table, broken and trashed.
In hindsight I wonder: Would I do it again? Would I change the story? Would I trade in my tale to tell for an unbroken table and a peaceful yet forgotten night?
I don’t know. The new piece of glass, or likely replacing the whole table, will cost me far more than a Christmas tree is worth. I missed a quiet evening of reading to my kids and relaxing with my wife. Neither of which would likely have amounted to anything out of the ordinary. But such is the way of good stories. No one wants to read or tell ordinary. We want to live ordinary. And yet we don’t.
Over Thanksgiving I picked up a book called Cutting For Stone, a novel my wife described as one of the best she had ever read. Those are high compliments from a women who reads a book or two a week. I fought through 250 pages before the story picked up. All the while, I stuck with it only because Shannon esteemed it. But the endless medical terminology and scattered stories of a boy’s childhood bored me. Finally halfway through, I lost count of the pages and fell into the story. But you know what made it engaging? Fear. Anger. Danger. Cost. Sacrifice. Grief. Hope.
All of the things I encountered on the back deck with my Christmas tree. These and these alone made my night worth telling and retelling.
Was the pain and money worth the experience of telling a friend a story? Again, I don’t know.
Dane originally asked about my tree because he saw the white string attached to the roof of my Jeep. “Did you get a Christmas tree?”
If it had not been raining that night…If I had bought a better saw…If I had not shattered the glass…all I would have had to answer would have been, “Yes”.
Process:
