Not Tight

There was one comment following yesterday’s post that compels me to offer a quick clarification (by the way, you really ought check out Will’s blog. Dude can write the pink off a pig). The addition of a donation-soon-to-be-generosity-enabler button (thanks, you know who!) did not arise because things are tight. This is not an act borne of hardship. I’m not saying that your “expressions of generosity,” be they moneyed or otherwise, are not greatly appreciated, because they sure are. And they will be put to good use. Fruit trees. A rejuvenated plow truck, hopefully in time for the onset of tomorrow’s melee. Web-hosting fees. And so on.

Truth is, I wouldn’t mind putting even more time into this space. For instance, I get a lot of questions that I simply don’t have the time to answer, but would very much like to. Often, there are subjects I’d like to explore in greater detail, but shy away from because they require more commitment than I can currently offer. Problem is, the more time I put into this space, the more I take from others. Some of those other spaces are remunerative, either in spending money or in the brass tack essentials of our wellbeing on this windblown hill. Writing here, while being rewarding in its own particular regard, does not put firewood in the stove. It does not milk the cow, or run the sawmill, or write a paying magazine article, or make sausage. It seems possible, though is by no means guaranteed, that this space could at some point provide a fraction of our moneyed income, and I would therefore be able to invest even more time into it. Or maybe that won’t happen. Hard sayin’ not knowin’, as the expression goes.

I guess things are sort of tight, or nearly so, at least when measured strictly in terms of finance, although of course anyone who’s been reading this blog for any length of time knows damn well we don’t measure a whole lot strictly in terms of finance. I guess the million dollars that Eumaeus pleaded for someone to send us would be a nice thing. Last night we fantasized about it for a while, about what we’d do with that sort of scratch. The first thing I thought of was all the little things – the reading lamp in our bedroom that’s actually one of those cheap utility clip lights clamped to a 16-penny nail pounded into the topside of a piece of window trim. But really, that lamp shines just fine. Or the handles on our kitchen faucet; the originals stripped off a couple years back, probably due to overenthusiastic twisting on the part of the boys, and Penny replaced ‘em with a couple of tiny wood clamps. We could fix that faucet, I guess, but truth is, it doesn’t need fixing. We don’t have a bed – just a mattress on the floor – so maybe a bed would be nice. But what the hell. When we’re sleeping, we hardly notice one way or t’other.

There’s one big thing we’d do: We’d build ourselves a barn. But even that wouldn’t take but a fraction, ‘cause we have the sawmill and the logs to put through the sawmill. I’m sure we could drop ten or maybe twenty grand pretty quick, though – get the foundation poured, buy some windows, a roof, hire one of our friends to help for a month or two. Yeah, we’d do that. The boys might get deer rifles. Might. I’d buy some cheese. Screw it: A lot of cheese. I’d take down the generosity enabler button. Or maybe I wouldn’t. Because just as it’s not about things being tight, I don’t really think it should be about things being untight.

I guess I look at that button as a means of expression, though only one of many. For the past couple of years, my means of expression has, at least in part, been the work I’ve offered here for free. The work I will still offer here for free. I guess that button is sorta like a farmer saying “here, come eat my food. Pay me if you want. Or don’t.” Naive as this may expose me to be, I want to live in a world where the people who pay me for that food don’t do it because they see that my overalls are worn through at the knees, or because my truck lists to one side, or because my barn roof leaks. I want them to pay me because my food tastes good. Because it fills their belly and because it makes them feel contented in a way they did not feel before they ate it.

And then I want them to come help me fix that damn roof.