Why do we insist on doing things the hard way?
A few years ago I remember a reckless fly by night moving operation in which my friend recruited me and a handful of other brash boneheads to help move a baby grand with only a midget dolly, a couple moving blankets, and our indomitable testosterone. Hopes were high at the start. We arrive on the scene and said instrument is there waiting for us. It looks simple enough; straightforward enough. It can’t be that heavy. We start talking, planning, bumping chests; someone hops under the hood and starts tinkering. Someone else runs off to find a toolbox. Then time passes, and more time passes.
For the better part of two hours the piano moves not one inch, and slowly we begin to lose steam. The piano which once was just a piano, a large lifeless piece of mass to be moved, now appears like a menace, an evil grin on its face, its pearly white keys taunting us; Go on big boys, do something! Move me if you can… Forget about the dolly, the blankets, the supposed strength of all these able bodies, the handful of engineering degrees between us. How do you move this dam thing? How do you break it down without it breaking you?
We had no idea. We took turns conjecturing, tapping the legs with rubber mallets, squinting at obscure screws in the frame, waiting for that guy who was finding the toolbox. Fuddled, listless, we milled around with our hands in our pockets like cats circling a tractor tire. The room became humid with our pacing and soon, like some poetic irony, it began to rain outside and the endless patter and dreary sky added to the atmosphere of impending futility.
After much consternation, finally there came a series of small wins; one leg came loose, then then another; the troops rallied under this wave of confidence, and shortly, using all our bottled strength we stood the piano upright, balancing it so that it did not pancake some one to his death- a few times it got close.
How did we move this behemoth? Not on trolleys or dollies or ramps; not on any of the intelligent means real professionals employ – but on foam rollers I found in the living room – the same foam rollers you would use to loosen up a tight hamstring or a cramped quad – and lo, miracle of miracles, it moved. Somehow we got it through the front door, flipped it from its precarious vertical position to a much safer, much more manageable horizontal position, loaded it in the truck, and proceeded to high five each other and drink many beers to celebrate our feat of heroism.
Besides it being a fools errand of the highest order, the thing I remember most about this episode is the triumphant feeling at the end of our ordeal, when, shoulder to shoulder, brothers in arms, we cleared the doorway, turned the beast over and got a good steady grip on it for the first time all afternoon. It was a feeling of utter relief. And it got me thinking — there is nothing so sweet, so liberating, so hale and wholesome as having a good grip on a situation – whether that situation is a piano to move, or something else entirely; a play you’re trying to write, a job you’re trying to quit, or a talk you need to have with you know who.
Life is not conspicuous with easy holds. There is plenty of slipperyness and much groping around. At the start of a budding romance there comes that twilight period after a few good dates when the pauses grow longer, the looks become deeper, and a funny, sometimes awkward, often marvelous mood descends upon the two; when they begin to intuit that the flirt might be more than a flirt, the fling more than a fling, the friendship more than a friendship – when one or both start to think, What is this? What’s going on? What are we? Are we, like, you know…
Then you have that conversation. Heart are spilled; lips are locked. The romance is ratified. It becomes a thing, a real thing; and you call your mom at lunchtime and very coyly, very confidently drop into conversation that you and (yes) your girlfriend are doing well. And mom, knowing your voice and reading your not so subtle change in inflection, says So she’s your girlfriend now, huh? And you say, yeah she is.
That, in so many words, is having a grip on it. We need these moments of surety – we need grips, knobs, handles bolted to all parts of life so we can lunge off one rock and onto the next. Thomas Jefferson had his own variation on this idea. One of his rules of life was ‘Always take things by the smooth handle’. It’s a fetching idea that I’ve come back to over and over again. It goes without saying that life is full of smooth handles and not so smooth handles; good ways of solving problems and bad ways of solving problems; hence my piano story, and a dozen others like it.
Sharp ends abound. Lately, with two babies in the house, I’m on high alert for sharp objects; scissors on the floor, uncapped pens, knives drifting off the edge of the countertop. Babies have grabby little hands and grabby indiscriminate hands. They grab in curiosity, they grab in excitement, they grab in sheer sassiness. They grab to grab. So do we. We may outgrow our days of eating off the floor, but figuratively speaking we still reach for things we shouldn’t, try to solve overly difficult problems by willpower alone, take on more than we should, mantle ourselves with high, overwhelming expectations – without ever thinking if there’s a better approach, a smoother alternative, a more amenable way.
I can only speak from experience. Sometimes after a vacation or a weekend where I fall out of the writing routine, I get frustrated with myself. In my frustration I resort to making bold hasty resolutions to try and snap myself back into shape. ‘I must to do this and this many pages’, ‘I must edit this whole stack in one go.’ – I must, I must. Chop chop. It never ends well. The resolutions are so unreasonable and over-ambitious they usually end in either another unreasonable resolution, shoddy work, or some combination thereof. This is not the smooth handle. This is not what Tom Jefferson had in mind. All this, when a bit of patience and a slower start would have done the trick.
To put it in other terms it’s like trying to deadlift a personal best cold after being away from the gym for a time. It’s unwise. Not only is it unwise, it’s unnecessary. A much more sensible approach is to start with something easier, even stupidly easy; finding your grip on the bar, putting your feet on the ground, lifting less and building up.
In the case of writing, the smooth handle – the one simple step that always helps me to get back into the work flow is sitting down at the desk – nothing more. Just sitting down. It’s easy to overlook a step so small and obvious, but it’s our fidelity to small obvious things that prepares us for the bigger things and gives us the momentum to keep going and the courage to begin again. Taking the smooth handle doesn’t mean all challenges come ready equipped with an easy solution if you only look hard enough. It means, in simplest form: give your challenge some forethought; plan your route; think before you act. Challenges are not shapeless. There are grips, handles, knobs that make all the difference. To move something formidable, it pays to have a good grip. Let me end this with an exhortation: if you’re ever asked to be an amateur piano mover, graciously decline. Take the smooth handle: call the pros.
show & tell 