Musings

When you’re four hours into a project that you thought would take only one, and the blister on your palm grows bigger with every twist of the screwdriver you’re using because you forgot to charge the battery to the power drill, it’s hard to remember the confidence and eager optimism you had when you started. Or you might send a text to your wife, “I’m up on the roof and I can’t get down,” Then, with no response and ominous thunder clouds building to the west, you fully grasp the urgency of your situation and you decide, I’d better call, hoping she hasn’t turned off her phone.

Welcome to the modern world. You’re working beyond your capacity on a project that’s taking more time and energy than you expected, just like the rest of us. But, sorry, The Laws of Small Projects won’t help you become more proficient at do-it-yourself projects, nor save you from your unrealistic ambitions or getting sucked into other people’s priorities. This is not another how-to book. For that, you need to look elsewhere: to the overabundance of instructive resources already at your disposal in magazines, on the internet, on YouTube, in your local bookstore, and in those unbidden infomercials that pop up on your smart phone.

The Laws of Small Projects postulates immutable laws about small projects that fill the gap in human understanding left by the sages Parkinson, Peter and Murphy half a century ago. It illuminates what small projects can teach us about ourselves and the meaning of life.

You’ve heard the Zen proverb, “chop wood, carry water” which suggests that attending to routine chores is the path to enlightenment. That ancient wisdom is still relevant in today’s modern world, even though chopping wood has been relegated to a weekend at the cabin and survivalists in plaid shirts. Undoubtedly, when stress and burnout give you headaches and ulcers and threaten to cut your life short, attending to routine chores can provide a brief sense of calm and satisfaction, and a bit of order to your chaotic life.

But it’s not that simple. The word “chores” has an underbelly inference of necessary but unpleasant. That’s probably why your bed is unmade and the dishes are piling up in the sink. Or, if you attend to your chores diligently, you don’t have time for anything else. But railing against the busyness of our lives is futile. If we restated the proverb as: kickback, drink coffee and do nothing—would that be more helpful in coping with today’s realities?

Devoting your time to a small project of your own choosing might break the routine and offer the possibility of more fun and greater satisfaction than doing your chores. “To hell with the dishes!” you might say. “I’ve got more important things to do!” And you would be right. But beware: small projects are fraught with challenge, frustration, and disappointment—they are not as innocent as they seem.

Regardless of your age, if you are wise enough to know you still have much to learn, the maxims iterated herein may give you pause, but don’t let them dissuade you from tackling that nagging at-home project. Think of yourself as the classic reluctant hero venturing into an exotic land filled with unknown adventures. Be brave; open yourself up to the possibilities. You may experience disappointment and may sustain injury, but you won’t die. Well yeah, that could happen too. But surely you will be a step further on the path to enlightenment.

If you are a wizened senior with arthritic hands and long years of shopworn knowhow, this book will clarify and reinforce your well-earned insights. You’ve experienced the edifying frustration and rewarding self-satisfaction of working on projects. You probably remember the lessons you learned on your journey more clearly than the projects you were working on when clarity struck. Other than laying in enough firewood for the winter, or preparing a good meal for an appreciative audience, there are few things you do in life that are so finite—do the project, relish your work and its accomplishment, bandage your wounds, and then move on to tackle other projects that give your life meaning.

Next Year Country. A few weeks back, my wife and I took a sojourn up to northeastern Montana. I was doing research for my latest book, Memory Lost and Found. I wanted to stand on the ground where my grandparents stood a hundred years ago.

It was late June and the rolling countryside was more vibrant and lush than I had imagined. The vast green fields of wheat that dominated the landscape during the Back’s era are still common but are now augmented by broad swaths of breathtakingly iridescent chartreuse, fields carpeted in small white-flowers, and acres of sweet-smelling buffalo grass, clover and hay.

We spent a day in Scobey, a small town several miles to the west of our destination, Comertown. Scobey was once the largest distribution point for wheat in the world and now hosts the Daniels County Museum and Frontier Village. We attended “Pioneer Days,” a popular celebration held each year during the last weekend in June. We started the morning sitting in an authentic wood-sided cook car like the one my grandmother managed a hundred years ago. We each had an eye-opening mug of dark coffee, although Sue would have preferred decaffeinated. We ate flapjacks drizzled with chokecherry syrup and saucer-sized patties of zesty country sausage.

After breakfast we walked among giant rusted threshing machines—all cranks and levers and chutes—their knobbed cast iron wheels anchored deep in tufts of prairie grass. I compared my height against the six foot metal wheel of an old steam-driven tractor and stared in awe at a sturdy sodbuster plow with six plowshares. We walked the boardwalk and explored the numerous buildings that had been moved to the museum’s pioneer village—a one room school house, a farmhouse, a mercantile and pharmacy, a blacksmith shop, and a saloon—among others. I was a little disappointed that they didn’t have a sod house, but they did have a couple of grayed and neglected, yet-to-be-restored, proving-up cabins (the small cabins built by settlers to prove their homestead claims).

I was amused and enlightened by the conversations I overheard—big-handed guys as old as me, wearing ball caps and faded blue jeans cinched tight with big belt buckles, talking about the weather. “We got some good rain but it’s not enough,” one said. And, “We didn’t get any up near us. But I could see them clouds go’en by. Maybe next year,” said another. I was told by a longtime local that northeast Montana is often called “Next Year” country. “Next year we’ll get more rain. Next year will be better.”

At one o’clock there was a reenactment of a bank robbery—gunshots and all—the area was known for hosting a number of cattle and horse thieves back in its day. Mid-afternoon, with a light rain falling that no one complained about, we watched a parade of restored antique automobiles and tractors. As the rain abated, we filed into the REX theater to watch the Dirty Shame Show—a burlesque show featuring music, skits, and dance performed by local talent. The show culminated in an enthusiastic and remarkably well-choreographed rendition of the Can-Can. It was all a hoot.

Late in the evening the clouds began to clear and, anticipating a colorful sunset, I drove to the western edge of town to a spot with an unobstructed view of the horizon. I wasn’t disappointed. As the sun dropped out of sight, the steel blue clouds overhead began to take on color, transitioning from a pale pink, then a rosy salmon, and then on to a bold iridescent orange crisscrossed with streaks of gold and purple. The horizon was flushed with a pure light, foretelling clear skies in the morning.