It’s been a while. I sat on a stool in the basement with the...

It’s been a while.

I sat on a stool in the basement with the slab
on my lap. I sanded it and sanded it — 80 grit, 150, 220, 300, 400, 600, a torn off
corner of a soft old T-shirt — and watched things emerge on the wood: swirls, rings, echoes,
spins, pulses, waves. Inside, deep enough, there’s a layer like outer space, a
density of swirl, and I sat on the stool in happy disbelief of it.

The wood tells you when it’s smooth enough. You
feel it with your hand, of course. I moved the flat of my hand over and over
it. Goddammit, I said outloud in the basement dim, amazed at how smooth it was,
the same way I sometimes swear about an especially delicious bite of food. Against
the hand, a feel that seems impossible from what was once rough and splintery
wood, like satin, like skin. The power of the transformation after such a
simple combination: friction, time.

The wood tells your hand when it’s smooth
enough. And the wood tells your eyes. Something happens at a certain layer and a
light begins to reveal itself — the wood seems lit from within. That’s when
you know it’s smooth enough. I felt the smooth and saw the light and the light
is a mystery.

The table was a gift for someone who’d
mentioned once offhand admiring madrone, wood that comes from the other side of
the country. I found a small slab online, did the work to it, and when I
presented it, a tiny table made from this wood, I knew from the face of the
recipient that it wasn’t the wood,
but the tree itself that was loved, the rich colors of its peeling bark, its
twisting, gnarled form. It was as though someone were to say, I like brown dogs and you were to find a
brown dog and murder it and skin it and wire its form the way you wanted it and
presented it to the person and instead of delighted, they would feel horrified and
sad.

But I
love the way the table looks. And it was good to see that light again. It had
been a while and I’d almost forgotten.