I am a history buff. I am a bookworm. I am a collectivist. I am still a final seed. I am embracing a newer distinction: bridge builder. A bridge to so many wheres, so many wears. For years, I fixated on Japanese and Arabic as a couple of the next languages that I want to learn in what remains of this decade. It seems that Duolingo is the standard, the Rosetta Stone of this time. More than a decade ago, I received a handmade coupon offering me the software (maybe still in the CD-ROM era) to learn Hindi on Rosetta Stone but that window closed after months of not fulfilling the gift. I forgot about the offer and invitation, I kept on with what was known and familiar rather than embark into the unknowns of a new language.
When my truck jiggled 2 weeks ago, I hadn’t known that I was at the doorway of a new language, learning basic syntax and components to an automobile engine. I’d given up on mechanics and cars since junior high when I struggled in Shop class in the 7th grade after an arduous semester that culminated in getting a C grade for the bunny rabbit shape I cut and shaved from a block wood. It was challenging, I felt daunted, the tools in the Shop classroom were intimidating, and my early teenage hands were unaccustomed to handling power tools so it’s been an unfurling process to learn that 5 and 6 year olds can handle power drills safely not that their hands, arms, and bodies cannot handle such power nor equipment. I’ve seen how they don’t need to be told no until they are 10 years old. When I was 13, I was discouraged and in a setting where I did not seek out an elder who could assist me in moving through my frustration and confusion. I’ve been enamored with woodworking and the many ways that humans create something out of nothing with wood.
Now in midlife, in the span of the last 10 days, my hands are learning a new language. On Saturday it was replacing 8 spark plugs. This morning, I was in the driveway before 7am so that I could replace 8 ignition coils. I started early in part because I was enthusiastic, also because I didn’t know how long it would take to replace the coils. Turns out I could do so in less than 40 minutes. All day long, I’ve been feeling accomplished, competent, the surge of glee after a successful first-time.
– Did you say coils or quells? I asked B two weeks ago when he listened and told me what he could hear. He asked about the tick-ticks and clicking coming from under the hood. I didn’t know how to answer other than to say that those sounds had been there since I bought the truck in early 2023. Before I drove over the mountain, he asked me where in the truck I’d felt the shaking: in the suspension or the engine? IDK, I thought. I could not answer until I drove 20 miles so I could locate that the shakes were coming from the suspension. I pulled into his driveway, he walked over, tilted his head.
– Then, I’d change the spark plugs first. Then the coils. It took him less than a minute to recognize the issues and likely solutions, even though he listened to the same sounds that had been indecipherable to me.
What I could listen to were his words: first, sparks plugs; a few days later, it was the ignition coils since the shaking persisted. The engine, and therefore the entire vehicle, runs smoother than it has in the 3 years that I’ve had it, and probably better than in the previous decade.
I’m learning how to communicate in new ways with my hands; how to listen to sounds that I’ve heard for decades but could not fathom what I was hearing. The best tutor is someone who will spend dedicated time and focused attention being able to identify, translate, and offer what is incomprehensible. In fatherhood, I’m learning from the ease and quickness with which children spawn new games, fashion a different set of rules, and try a different way to play. I saw a summary of Esther Perel’s interview with Krista Tippett in July 2019 saying how: “Play is when risk is fun. But you cannot play when you are in a sense of danger.” Read the transcript, but the 6 minute video distillation is a tantalizing remix.
I hear the childish capacity for play in Bill Withers’ lyrics of Can We Pretend:
Can we pretend /
The pain is gone /
And go our merry way /
Paint a portrait of tomorrow /
With the colors bright and gay
I’m already curious about what else I’ll learn by doing, learn by using my hands to remove and replace what is worn out or on the way to breaking. I pretend that I’ll replace shocks, tweak the door handle and I’ll never misunderstand spark plugs or coils agin. What’s available to me? My capacity to learn. My neighbors and friends who can maintain an engine as easily as I can bake a pan of brownies. I’m learning new ways because I asked for some help and someone who knew enough to teach me.
washing dishes: a father’s glimpses 