Maintenance Man

I trust you'll pardon my French if I say it's just cold as crap here today. Winter blustered back in to these parts last night with a vengeance; we woke to temps in the teens, too cold for my walk, and also too cold to do the next steps on the un-wallpapering chore....I mean, project. The photo above shows the progress we made yesterday. In six hours, we did one room. Come to find out, wallpaper has two layers, the decorative layer, which peels right off like sunburned skin, and the sticky layer, where the real work resides. If you don't know about these two layers, you think you've cut yourself a nice piece of cake when that first layer just comes right off. Oh. But then what's that brown layer underneath??? The sticky layer requires soaking with water and scraping, repeatedly, in that order. Dropcloths, rags, putty knives, paper scraps. I'm showing you the clean version up there.

To finish the job, I have to get a ladder, a bucket of water, and some rags to wipe off the residue of glue that stays behind. I also need somehow to smooth those brown spots down so Steve can come behind me and apply drywall mud, then paint. It's so cold in the house I can't entertain the thought of sticking my hands in water to do that job. It can wait, since Steve can't do his thing until the weekend.

No, Ravel, we will never do wallpaper again! The wallpaper was always Steve's idea, anyway, and I, able to see the charms of both solid paint and patterned paper, just went along with the paper and was happy with it. It was great fun to hear Steve say, again and again yesterday, "never more wallpaper!!!" And, just to drive the point home, I'll say one more time, ever so gently, it's the whole damn house!

This do-it-yourself, handyperson thing was never an activity I was attracted to for myself. I'm used to being around such people, though, because my father was a great do-it-yourselfer, having finished our basement into a beautiful rec room with knotty pine (including a little knotty-pine bar that fit under the stairway), tile and drywall. He went on to design the waterfront house he and my mother retired to. He hired a contractor do the main structure, but together my parents did all of the internal and external finish work. My mother was great with wallpaper and paint.

Steve is a handyman par excellence. He could have made a handsome living as a contractor had he chosen the profession. He has made my life immeasurably more beautiful with his skills. Together, we have literally re-created this house we live in, inside and out. The odd thing about living with someone like that is that he takes these skills for granted and assumes that everyone has them or has an interest in cultivating them. He thinks nothing of repairing electric switches, plumbing, carpentry--things that most normal people would pay good money to have done for them. His creativity is expressed through these projects, though, and my life is enhanced. Not a bad deal.

I once read one of those things that purport to divide personality types into categories, and this particular one had resonance with me: the "maintainer." The one in a group who smoothes the rough patches, the one who finds the humor in a situation, the one trying--not to please people for its own sake, but to make sure they are happy and comfortable. For better or worse, that's me. Somewhere along the line I became aware that we all complain, all the time, with the slightest opportunity. I know I'm a great kvetcher. It seems to be human nature to want to tear down things that don't meet with our approval. But the opposite rarely applies. If things are going well, or if we like something, we rarely voice those positives. "No news is good news." When I made that discovery, I consciously decided to balance my all-too-ready sarcastic criticisms with vocal support of what I think is good. In a competitive office setting especially, you see this happen all the time: a young person just starting out discouraged by general disappoval of the results of some sincere effort. The results may have been lacking in some way, but some very hard work went into them nonetheless. Not to congratulate the effort itself and encourage more of the same seemed short-sighted to me, and unfair. More than once I have even congratulated couples on finding the courage to divorce, knowing how easy it is to put up with the status quo in the face of a difficult but necessary step. I've been rewarded with surprise and gratitude for being, sometimes, the only supportive voice.

It wouldn't be life without disappointment. Sarcasm and the wiseguy putdown are so easy and fun, for some reason more so than a sincere recognition of the positive. It takes a little work at first, but after a while looking for something good becomes second nature. Praise is unexpected, so rare, in fact, that it usually comes as a surprise. The grateful smile that greets it is the best reward of all.