Knowing What’s Normal
There are times in everyone’s life when things can seem less normal than at other times. Sometimes the time, periodic moments and extended periods alike, can seem less controlled for a while, but you put the steps in order and try as best you can to stack up up the not-so-obvious priorities. As I worked through the past weeks and months moving house and home, workshop to workshop and garage workshop to garage workshop, I recalled the many times I have gone through these phases. Boxes for shipping become wall cupboards for tools and pieces of odd wood record historic moments in your life. They’re important records as are my toolboxes and other boxes holding tools but not toolboxes. Each sliding lid records a message. My first big move was to the US. From my smoking days a cigarette burn leaves a shallow hollow in the hickory shaft and then another box framed with pine tells me of days creating them before my booking five flights to Dallas Fort Worth airport. With my family we had 13 pieces of migration luggage. I made a dozen shipping crates for my tools, the children’s personal things and then my wife’s treasures too The bridges were burned back then in ’87. Imagine almost 30 years of your life packaged away at different times and the only things that made any real sense were the tools you had in boxes, the designs you had gestating in your head and the trust you had that your hands could use these elements to support your family. 
Many of you have said the moves are highly distressing emotionally and physically but the hard moves make the next moves all the easier. Soon after you are settled in you wonder what the fuss was about. These various aspects of the moves seemed quite seamless to me. Resetting the workshop and settling it do take effort and thought. many things never change. My saws have hung in their place at my bench for three decades. There is no reason to change it. These three I reach for avery few minutes throughout the day. Where would they go? I don’t want to turn for them, reach for them with my left hand, clutter my bench with them.
Tomorrow we begin filming again. It will seem different to me because what was common to me before is changed even if only by a little. I will search for the camera at times because of the changes, but soon I will find it normal again. I know this. If my tools are in their rightful and usual place I will be anchored, settled, peaceful. This would be the case whether filming or not. My tools bring normality to all things for me. When stresses inevitably happen and I search for answers beyond my sphere, I can find solutions as the chisels slice and chop and the plane shaves, fits and finishes the arguments I encounter in the grains I work with. 
I had to smile at the part about some saying it’s empty-minded. Emptying your mind is the only way new wisdom can come in.
Doing creative work that keeps your attention, but allows subconscious thought, is the best way I know of to clear your mind (well, apart from driving home after work maybe, but you don’t have to do that)
My workbench is often a little cluttered and gets worse as I gain greater focus in the execution of my work. People sometimes comment, but the relief is this brilliance of another man; “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” Albert Einstein.
Haha, indeed. Einstein had some wonderful observations to be sure. All kinds of studies actually show that creative minds tend to have cluttered workspaces. Good thing Einstein did most of his work in his head or it would’ve been utter chaos where he worked 😀
But the thing is, it isn’t cluttered in your mind at all. Your mind is perfectly focused and you tend to know where everything is while you keep it in easy reach. Really where you place something is an extension of your mind. It’s just that someone else can’t see the dynamic order in it.
At a company I worked the cleaners had strict orders never to touch anything on desks; clean around it, don’t move it. If they tidied up that heap of unsorted papers you’d easily lose a day of work finding everything back again.
If that is all you require to find and empty-mind, then you have surpassed what most men will ever find. Outside the training hall, my hand tools have become about the only path I have have to an empty-mind free of the modern stress.
At the age of 50 I discovered Yoga – more from need to overcome the stiffness that comes with advancing years, than any spiritual desire. The thing our teacher says so often is that “Yoga is a way to still the mind”. From this stillness we give ourselves time to be in the moment, to be mindful – to be aware but not judging. I find planing takes me to the same place. So much so that I have a few pieces of wood ready to simply be used to check my planes. A few strokes of the plane and I calm down and the creative thought begin to flow. It is a kind of empty-mind, but one that is fertile for new creation.
Very glad that you are settled in your new home and shop.
Am really looking forward to receiving your new book.
Thanks for your excellent teaching. I am looking forward to more.
Best Wishes,
Rex
I wish I had even a tenth of your focus and drive I’d get so much more done rather than looking for another reason why I didn’t do what I had to do, you seem to have accomplished so much just over the winter so many things have changed roll on the spring .
I am always amused how our lives have been similar from different directions. I moved my family to England in 1987 from the USA when you moved to Texas that same year. Quite a change for you and for me culturally. I started a sign business in Kent with $400 dollars to spare (and with a family of six at the time to feed). When you have faith in your skills, determination, and an ‘I refuse to fail’ attitude you tend to succeed. My business like your’s was solely reliant upon my personal skills to produce quality work.
I have moved many times since,..tea chest storage from England twice and made lots of shipping boxes and chests too along the way,…some of which still house tools etc. I hope the younger readers see and understand that even today one can still be successful as a sole proprietor in any field from what is basically hard work and desire to hone skills. There’s no magic pill,…you have to have confidence and and determination to succeed. I became a member of the master classes to pick up tips and tricks I may have missed along the path and I continue to learn lots from it. Self improvement is a life long journey. Always a ‘big thank you’ for all you do and share.
My sense of home was closely tied to Laya, my faithful friend who has passed on. She was a retired racing greyhound. On my long business or vacation trips, I would crave to be back home, and home was where Laya was, back in Jacksonville with friends. Then Laya and I moved to Lakeland, FL dismantling seven years of our life in Jacksonville. After the move was done and the rental truck returned, amidst the piles of boxes and furniture, Laya made a little nest on the sofa and we called Lakeland our home. Just that easy.
This is a somewhat long-winded way of saying that I understand how your seemingly impersonal tools bring normality to all things for you…how it starts to seem fine again. I hope you find your place of home in your new town and your new creative workspace. I hope the sadness of leaving friends and places behind in Wales can be overcome by fresh new experiences in your new home.
Talk about about a professional camera setup have you wondered would you have had the same quality picture with lesser expensive equipment.
@Handmadeuniqueclocks – that’s a strange question to me, most people start out with a cheaper set up and invest in gear as they grow. They sell video, and time spent creating video is a factor I’m sure. How long would it take to rig a camera up high that’s out of the way to get a shot with lesser gear?
The capture device is a link in the chain, and you can do well with a modest camera as long as it has a good lens and the scene is well lit. Hanging lights and getting the camera mounted in a stable manner can be handled in all sorts of ways. And good sound quality is critical, and can be challenging. You basically need to go slowly, evaluate what is working and what is not, and refine your system as you gain experience.
Thank you Paul for your reflections on the disruptions that come with moving the contents of a shop.
I can relate to the experiences of moving 10 hours away from a well organized shop only to start over again and to discover that patterns of tool organization keep it manageable. Between my tool chest and cabinets, and patterns of hanging tools on the wall it helps me keep the joy of doing the work. My shop time is much less for me as a pastor/woodworker, but I’ve been through many moves and know the frustration of re-establishing the layout. Blessings on your fine work. Jim
as a real estate attorney for as long as you’ve been a woodworker, I learned early on that what was just another transaction for me was akin to a death or divorce in terms of the stress it generated for the clients and families involved. I did my best to reassure them and treat them with the same consideration you would treat people in dire circumstances, until some semblance of normalcy returned to their lives. It is an insidious sort of stress because it comes with a sense of newness and adventure – but still high up there on the stress meter. Being aware of this stress helps make some of the adjustment anxiety a little more manageable. Cheers.
Paul,
Getting outside the box, or comfort zone is a way to stir the pot and throw off the unnecessary. It helps the creativity flow.
Looking forward to what comes out of your new space!
I share your thoughts. When days seem hectic and people around appear frantic it only takes a moment to step into my work area, run fingers across a plane handle, look upon my chisels and feel a wave a calm surround me. Thank you for all you do and the things you share.
My wife and I have made many interstate moves, and many intra-state moves, over the last 18 years, and it really does come down to “home is where the heart is.” Anyplace can be like home in a snap once you move in your familiar and comforting things, and you resume the patterns of life in the new place.
Here’s looking forward to watching you make a home of the new workshop.
I prefer:
“A tidy desk is a sign of a sick mind.”
My wife and I have moved following an early retirement, we bought a place in France as we couldn’t afford a place in UK. At least not a place we liked. Like you Paul we moved somewhere where the natives spoke little if any English but we managed and what we have done is above all fun and not dull. Better to have taken a chance and failed than not to have tried at all and all that.
Take care and good luck for 2016.
Mark
Spot on Paul-
Last year I retired and my wife and I moved moved from Florida to Cape Cod, Mass. We packed a 26′ rental truck with all we owned and drove north for four days. 92 degrees when we packed, and snowing as we crossed the Hudson river.
On the truck were all the tools that had lain dormant during our stay in Florida, including a European style workbench I had build before coming south in 2001. I never used it. It suffered an attack of powder post beetles, which I fought, and the bench survived.
Getting the bench into the basement, unpacking the hand tools, and getting going with my woodworking again made all the transitions, from tropical to temperate climate, work to retirement, active woodworker from a guy who could only read and dream about it a positve experience. It really helped me settle in.
I’ve been in Mexico for the winter, and looking forward to getting back to my shop, refining it, and getting back to the woodworking I’ve been planning while here in the sunny south.
Paul,
you look like a father cradling A beloved child(the plane). reading these blogs is like balm to a weary soul. I truly enjoy an reap from your comments and also the many that share their heart.
Michael J Price….USA
Watched your workbench making videos recently. I guess many of your moves involved also making a new set of those benches for your schools. What a strength of will that shows!
Truly yours,
Richard
True, moving is a life event. But lets not forget our military who move time after time giving freely of themselves and their families over and over in the defense of the freedom we enjoy and sometime forget to be grateful.