Time goes by
Les's shop windows overlook a meadow of high golden-brown weeds, with pines in the distance. All week long, fairytale snow has been falling, like a radio stuck on The Nutcracker day after day. The tall weeds are buried to their middles; the trees hunch like a row of giants, pale and vanishing behind a mist of flakes. Every time I look up from my work bench, it looks the same, never tiresome.
A feral cat lives there. Les remembers the mother and grandmother, has seen her kittens. Before he quit smoking, behind the building, he would see them more frequently. Every morning since the snow started, he has left a bowl of kibble for her. Today she came closer than ever, that he can remember, crouched in the ruts behind our cars and watched us watching her through the window. Apparently the meadow supplies a generous diet of mice-she looks sleek and healthy. And what a beauty: black with smudges of butterscotch brindle, cream beneath her chin, yellow-green eyes.
Time goes by so slowly and time can do so much. Are you still mine? I need your love, I need your love, God speed your love to me.
Today I discovered those Righteous Brothers lyrics grafted into a Joni Mitchell song. How can I not love that?
Actually, the flux of time changes. When I'm doing something mindless, like scraping old felt gaskets, I look up after what seems like an hour and the clock says five minutes. But when I concentrate on measuring, cutting and gluing new leather gaskets, the afternoon slips away quickly. Of course I prefer these more interesting jobs, and like when work proceeds quickly.
But not life. Years ago when I was clinically depressed and stopped working, life slowed down noticeably. Now I fear one breath too deep might suck it all away.
Les reminds me of a wizard or mad scientist, darting about the shop, from one task to another. An idea captures his mind and he flies with it, only to have that lead him to something else. It's fine, except when he remembers a supplier or client he needs to call, and leaves me holding up one end of a heavy organ part, a human clamp stuck in place. Even then, it amuses me. He dabbles at seemingly unrelated projects, but eventually they start to feed together, and the refurbished organ takes shape.
One day two weeks ago Les had set me up cleaning pipes. When I finished he was involved deeply in something else. Keeping myself busy, I moved onto the horrible, grubby old pedal board, gave it a thorough scrubbing.
Little did I know I would spend most of yesterday and today dismantling the same pedal board screw by screw, uncovering 80 years worth of lint, litter and talcum powder, tearing out old wiring, washing it pedal by muddy pedal, sanding worn surfaces, reassembling and setting it up for new electrical contacts. I have a different work style from Les. I savour the hours spent sanding away decades of foot scuffs, bringing clean maple grain to light, cradling each pedal like a new baby. I suppose that's what he needs from me.
Top: the front ends of the pedals insert on these pins. Bottom: these obsolete exhaust magnets controlled air flow through one of the wind chests-modern parts of this type would not fit the wind chests, so are being replaced with a different mechanism. Sarah Leask of Chesley, a member of Geneva Presbyterian Church, has created her own photo blog of the pipe organ restoration.
