The initial stages of a project tend usually towards misery,for...

The initial stages of a project tend usually towards misery,
for me at least. The start involves the dirtiest and most tedious parts. The dismantling
before the building. We started work ten days ago on a big job, maybe our
biggest to date. A new kitchen, a new dining room, and an extension by about
four-and-a-half feet off the back of a house on a north Cambridge side street.
It’s a small house, and there’s a third baby on the way; the sense is every
square inch helps. So far, it’s been hole-digging, cement-pouring,
column-securing, and beam-placing, readying the space for new walls, new
weight. These are the days when the project seems unfinishable, when it is
impossible to imagine walls, counters, windows, doors. When we sit on
the subfloor as we eat lunch and listen to the big blue tarp thwap in the November
wind. Lunch breaks are shorter because if we sit too long, the chill takes
hold. I haven’t learned yet how to have a better attitude about beginnings. There
is something frightening in them. As much as I tell myself that all the Humpty-Dumpty
pieces will be put together, it doesn’t feel that way. Just hard dumb labor and
damage. So it starts. And my lament will shift, I know, but right now, I can’t
sing about the glory or satisfaction. It is grind and I am tired.