For months at the end of 2023 and through the beginning of 2024, I’ve been in a mood that could most accurately be described as a “funk”. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the definition includes three variations:

Not so much number 3, but mostly in a bit of a panic compounded by a decent sprinkling of the blues, and not the musical kind. As you might have read from other parts of this website, my wife had been dealing with an unwelcome visitor. The kind of visitor that you can’t ignore, not one you would ever ask to stay and definitely one you try to get rid of; aggressively. Without repeating that story, it’s good to know now that the visitor is gone and we are beginning to get back to our normal lives mostly filled with routine and family commitments and an occasional date night involving dinner followed by a tour of the local food market. It’s my job to push the cart. Okay. Sometimes I sneak something into the basket that causes her to raise an eyebrow during check out. “Yes. I absolutely need those Jack Links Beef Sticks.” (Not a sponsor)

While she continues to heal physically, my needed role as a supportive bystander that had dominated my psyche for more than half a year was now fading. It was time to get my head directed back to things that were positive, healthy and a departure from that previous funk. Yes, of course I did my time closed off from the world, hunkered down in the basement and buried in a comfy chair. But, there is always a risk of slowly and willingly falling deeper into that dark hole and I really didn’t want to go there.

I started to think about small projects I could do in the wood shop again. I reached out to long lost friends again. I started short hikes around the neighborhood again. I made some future travel plans at the urging of my wife so we could celebrate her recovery. It was the wood shop however, that brought me back to what you might be able to describe as the “normal me”. Family would be quick to snicker at that last line. “Normal? Dad? I don’t think so.”

Small easy projects were a great way to get started and occupy the mind with details that are far from negative. I’ve written about this before, but it is true that when I use my head to design anything or create anything new, I tend to feel a sense of self worth and pride. “I just made that…from a block of wood.” I love a tee shirt that I spotted a few years ago that said; “My Super Power? I turn Wood into Things.”

One of the more detailed projects that I was thinking about needed a wood carving tool to do some of the shaping and many of those tools were pretty expensive. I thought I might be able to make a carving tool out of an old box wrench and a block of walnut. I’ve never made anything like that and I didn’t really know if I could pull it off, but the “try” was the thing I felt best about. Grinding down the circular part of the wrench to a sharp edge and carving a handle to accept the new carving blade was extremely satisfying. And yes kids, it does actually carve wood.

I tell you that story as a tie-back to the title of this blog. The carving tool was needed so I could start carving and shaping a bunch of smaller wooden pieces for a pretty complex kinetic sculpture. The complexity of that project and the sheer number of pieces and parts gave my brain something to noodle on. How do the parts work together? What dimensions should the working gears be? How much clearance do I need within the structure to allow for movement of the parts? When you give your brain and body a positive creative task like that, it tends to respond positively. After a long day of drawing that design on paper, erasing and re-drawing, measuring and redesigning, I was exhausted. I felt good about the effort even though more days of design would be needed, and I found myself at peace.

Within the last month, I had another idea about creating a woodworker’s version of a votive candle or an accent light you could place on any table or mantel. The accent piece could be lit by a battery operated and switched LED bulb, highlighting a variety of cut pieces from a nice furniture wood like Cherry or Walnut. The problem is, or the positive brain challenge is that I would need 128 perfectly cut small wood pieces to satisfy this design. And of course made more difficult with the addition of epoxy to fill gaps between the cut pieces, hopefully finding a way to remove all those pesky epoxy bubbles.

Pieces. Lots of pieces. Different lengths and perfectly matching widths and depths. In the end my design would have them all nestled together in a cube with the individual blocks standing upright at different heights. “Cool”, I thought. “Lots of clustered and yet somehow disorganized pieces.”

There are a great number of articles and medical studies that support the direct connection between creativity and mental health. Not that creativity is the cure for all people and all situations. It isn’t a panacea. But when you consider that the simple act of thinking about, designing, or making something from scratch tends to make you feel better, you’ll start to get where I’m coming from. It can be something as simple as baking a fresh batch of cookies from scratch. Your preferred creative activity might be scrapbooking, or gardening, or photography or quilting but you know that when you are engaged in that activity, your mind is in a good place. You land at an even better place once you complete the activity. That sense of accomplishment that comes from using your head to solve problems, work through the design or the task and bringing that activity to a conclusion. You are at peace.

For me, I like the detailed challenges found in the wood shop, especially when it comes to lots of little moving or even well designed stationary parts. Pieces. Lots of pieces. The activity becomes worthwhile for me because dealing with lots of pieces and parts means that the project is hard. It takes my mind off negative things so I can focus on the issues and challenges buried within the project on my work bench.

So as I take a break from the shop and write this, and all my Cherry wood pieces and parts wait patiently for my return, I am at peace. I mean, wood is inanimate so it’s unlikely that they are, you know, actually waiting anxiously for my return but I like how it wraps up this blog.

Focus on something with lots of pieces or parts or ingredients. Invest your body and mind into that creative activity. Be a “maker”. Enjoy the fruits of your completed labor. Be at peace.