Fixing What's Old

As a modern Renaissance man I like to equate my life to the Renaissance.   My forties are not just growing older, they are a re-awakening.  An attempt to accomplish things I failed at earlier in life.  This can include languages like Spanish, French and German.  A certifiable attempt to discover artistic ability of which I have little.  Yet each of these is intellectually cerebral.  I also count among my failings mechanical ability.  Mechanical ability is much more than just dirty hands, it is the ability to problem solve.

The other day my son watched me repair something and he told me he was afraid.  "Why are you afraid?"  I asked.  I half expected him to recount some occurrence involving a bully or a deeply introspective fear.

"How will I know how to do these things?"  He asked, perplexed.

I smiled and explained that as we grow into life we have two options.  The first is to pay people to do things for us.  That reality will either leave us bankrupt or at the least deplete our modest fortunes.  The other solution is to learn how to do it yourself and hope for the best.  I tried to reassure him that he would learn if for no other reason, necessity.

I thought about my answer to him yet it failed to explain why I have been spending weekend after weekend trying to resurrect a 1965 Volkswagen Beetle.  My father has been equally mystified.  Growing up I never had a place for this in my life.  Why suddenly at 46 years old with a nice reliable Japanese car in the driveway was I working on a 48 year old machine?  For my father it was a source of satisfaction and amusement.  Finally I had created a set of tools he could admire and understand.  In some way it seemed to be pulling me closer to him as we discussed various problems and solutions.  The truth is I can't help but ask myself a similar question.  When in my life had I ever been excited about the ability to use a heat gun to shrink a tube around a wire?

As I labored on my various projects I knew my father could comprehend.  Even my son was willing to learn and help me until his friends showed up and his priorities suddenly changed.  My wife was different.  She simply looked on in disbelief.  Why on earth would I want to spend my money and my time on an old machine that didn't work well?  It was nothing more than a rusty worn out hulk from another era.  Couldn't it be better utilized?  The money could be saved or spent on something enjoyable.  Something new, polished and useable.  I have tried to explain it to her in many ways.  Tried to explain the connection I felt to my son and father.  I tried to explain the satisfaction of discovering a problem and subsequently developing a solution.  It was a feeling of accomplishment that made me proud yet still, nothing seemed to penetrate her ability to comprehend.  In her eyes I was crazy and wasting money.  Even when her words were absent I could see it in her eyes and the expression on her face.

I have continued to ponder the situation and the other day while I attempted to extinguish a small electrical fire I had created while trying to fix some wiring in my son's 40 year old car I started to ponder.  The smoke was still clearing and the air was filled with the unmistakable smell of burnt electric wiring.  Okay, in truth my thoughts came after I realized that I had not incinerated his entire electrical system.  When the torrent of curse words ceased I wondered if my wife was right.  Perhaps my depleted bank account was simply a victim of my own stupidity.  My own irrational desires to be something I wasn't, to repair something I shouldn't.  Suddenly the can do attitude I had felt was filled with self doubt.  Doubt from my mistakes, doubt from my wife.  Doubt from my mechanic friend who frustrated with my mechanical ignorance reminds me in a seemingly friendly way I don't know what I am doing. 

I am growing older.  I am forty-six years old and my body doesn't work as well as it used to.  It seems like all the time some new little pain will pop up, rear it's demonic head as if to remind me who is boss.  It most certainly is not me, it is time and age marching on.  Somehow as I tinker with a 48 year old car I like the feeling that I am able to take something old and make it work again.  Maybe I thought, the very tinkering was a piece of my psychological puzzle.  It was a way of proving to myself that even as I grow older I am not becoming more useless.  There is still hope for me in some way.

In an earlier blog I wrote about a Christmas memory of a cowboy town my father built for me for Christmas.  It must have touched my father because this year for his annual Christmas visit he came with a mission.  When I awoke on Christmas morning I found a train layout complete with a Lionel train that he had constructed. In the center was a pedestal with the northern lights twinkling color beneath the snow and above that was our tree. The train was the Polar Express.  I was alone that morning for a change.  My teenage son was still sleeping as was my wife and my father.  I sat beneath the tree in my boxer shorts, a forty six year old man making the train run round and pushing a button to create a whistle.  I put my head against the carpet and watched the engine approach me at eye level. As it rounded the bend it passed a Lincoln Log fort filled with toy soldiers. For just a moment, a fraction of an instant I was seven years old again.

Life is a continuous puzzle.  Every answer creates another question.  Sometimes I believe you just have to go with what feels right.  For some unexplained reason as I fix that old broken automobile or watch with big round eyes as my Christmas train heads toward my head I feel more involved with myself and with life.  I feel like my past makes more sense and my future has more purpose.  I guess some will never understand.  Others may laugh at a curious sight.  Still, others might just understand as they themselves look for the strings of the marionette that connects them to life.