It’s 2015. I’m in my basement during band rehearsal. I am being drenched. By a pipe I just cut. It’s not cut all the way. Just a slice in the wall of the pipe. The cold water of nine inactive radiators, and all the connected pipe, is spilling out in a steady, polite gusher, like the spray you make when plugging the end of a running garden hose.
My finger is curled tight around the slice. 200 gallons of water is steadily testing the heroic figure I had fashioned moments before: a seasoned architect, holding a Sawzall, ready to go to work on his own house.
I can’t release my finger or the spray goes everywhere. I can’t seal the pipe because I don’t have that fancy tape. I can’t drain the system because the valve is six feet away. I’ve gotta break the news our two kid household is gonna be without water a bit longer than planned. Hopefully we don’t get a coldsnap.
Cold water is running down my arm, under my shirt. I feel it soaking into the waistband of my jeans. My boots are gonna be filled soon. I should probably take the phone from my pocket.
Yeah. It’s bad. And I couldn’t be happier.
There was a time though, when this kind of joy was lost. And there were no guarantees it would rerun.
It’s 1977, the beginning of my feral period. My mom was in trouble. Angry, hurting. I did not know why. But I had a game plan: keep my head down. A sensible strategy around powder kegs really.
But there’s some things not even the threat of TNT can prevent. Like the exuberance of a 13 year old boy eager to share his best model airplane EVER. Maybe it was number 113. Or maybe number 122. But definitely the best. Ever. SOMEBODY has to be told.
It’s 10 in the morning. I’m standing at the foot of Mom’s bed, doing my Vanna impression when the fuse hits the powder, “Get your shit together if you don’t want to be a construction worker the rest of your life!” Her agony sprays over me from a fire hose of pain, regret, abandonment.
Exuberance extinguished.
Within three years I am a poster boy for drug treatment. In fairness, her outburst wasn’t the only force at work. And a proper accounting requires acknowledging that my “maker joy” wasn’t the only casualty. But that moment was the one that stole my breath, my voice. Arguably my most valued possessions.
Finding that maker joy became a mission without knowing it. Dozens of projects, inspired by off-chart music, obscure sci-fi, and aided by generous unrecognized hands heaving to my gunwales. Art, engines, furniture, landscapes. And a powerful hurt that went along with each stride. I needed pushing, hard pushing of grades, clients, economic calamity.
Still, uncertainty, self-sabotage, hesitation lingers.
Thirty years later, two decades of recovery under my mother’s belt and mine, she’s passed away. I have a toddler and a newborn. For the first time in our half dozen years, my therapist is worried about depression. I’m given the task of tracking my mood. Simple scale of 1-3, a couple times a day for a month or so.
After a couple weeks, two surprises. First, the vast majority of my experience is a 2. Bad news for my “Mr. Grumpypants” merit badge of misery. Second, whenever I have a 3, I am most likely making something.
This calamitous water leak I am standing under brings out the fire of my exuberance. I am relishing the failure. Time slowed, I was effortlessly weighing my options, plotting my moves. My kindly geyser is fuel that brings forth an effortless, unembarrassed call for help from my bandmates, family, neighbors. We rally, getting the system drained, my shivering self to a warm bath. Within hours, I’ve brought the torch to the piping, turned on the water, filling the radiators, all in time to make dinner.