Working a Trade

& the whole picture from an ant's perspective

If we call the light to ourselves, yet stop it there, a shadow is created outside us. If we call the light to not only fill us, but then as well to shine through us to others, there is no shadow—the gifting circle of the light is continued.

—Brooke Medicine Eagle

I’ve been thinking about the whole picture, how to hold it, how to live it, when parts of it are abhorrent. It’s not a new line of thinking for me. I’ve staked my education, my art, and if I’m honest, my entire life on this tack, but it surprises me sometimes that I hold the course. It’s never been easy, rarely been graceful, often been painful, and only occasionally brought me the sparkling joy of exquisite knowing, that crystal clear unshakeable rightness in body, mind, and spirit. Mostly, I hold the course with the help of a mental compass—an intellectual and creative device—I’ve fashioned to locate true north even when the dizzying bits of living tell me to veer off course.

Most recently, true north aka the whole picture, led me to the trades. I joined the lunchbox toting set, punching a clock and working a solid 40 in steel-toed boots on a concrete floor, bedecked with PPE for eyes, ears, lungs, and extremities I hope to keep in tact despite a dizzying collection of large and loud machines that joint, plane, sand, bevel, dowel, lamello, mortise, chisel, tenon, and rout their way through my day.

At its most basic, I’m here to make a living, something I’ve been sorely challenged to achieve over the past few years of holistically disabling illness. The theory goes, since my brain still won’t do all I wish it would, all it used to do, I’ll leverage an increasingly strong and recovered body to compensate. I’ll throw brawn at the making-a-living conundrum when brain still says, “no way!”

In a flight of fancy and experiment, I’m also curious whether my not actually very brawny body can play ball with the big boys, whether it’s even possible to work this way. And while, I’m not sure it’s healthy, it’s thrilling to be the ant in the mix, carrying some disproportionate weight, even if in my case, I usually have to fashion clever workarounds to achieve the desired effect rather than muscle my way through the task. I am not, in the end, very much like an ant, but I love the feeling of doing something physically impossible, something that defies expectation and stereotype, work-around or no. I also like being body-tired. I sleep better when I can’t help but sleep. Physical exhaustion beats brain fatigue at the end of a day, every time.

Basic necessity and personal vanity—while compelling at the moment—are not, however, at the heart of my trip to the trades. In addition to covering the personal basics, I’m trying my darnedest to understand and survive the whole picture at this moment in my life, at this time in history, and to continue what Medicine Eagle calls the gifting circle of light.

Such a quest—one that undergirds my entire art and intellectual practice—keeps me teetering perpetually on a razor’s edge of ethics and morality too complex for me to fully understand, often compromised beyond easy return, and at it’s most damning, positioned as a problematic tourist in other people’s lives. I’ve been on this course my whole life, but I still can’t fully account for or explain or justify it. I just do it, because usually, it brings me a little closer to understanding the abhorrent parts of us, and of myself—U.S. capitalism and its systemic oppressions, the recent election and the resounding popularity of the incoming president, misogyny, and elitism, for example.

While I’ve only been punching a clock, scarfing down lunch in twenty minutes, and working a labor-intensive 40 for three weeks, already, I begin to understand some key disconnects. A theoretical conversation about mutual empowerment, equity, climate change, and all the other priorities I consider in the current cringe-worthy state of things are pretty darn hard to have room or patience for at the end of my day in the trades.

In order, I want a shower, to connect with those I care about, to eat good food, and to zone out long enough to feel the pleasure of autonomy for the fleeting second before I pass out from exhaustion. I want some time to be outside before the sun goes down—by 4 o’clock in this latitude. I want to know that my bills are covered. I want to hold the dream that maybe one day, I’ll have more time to do more things I want to do, least of which, it turns out, might be thinking and talking about the current state of things, biggest picture style.

Given this shift in priorities, I might then, be tempted to vote for someone who promises me autonomy. Even if he’s lying, even if he merely fuels a myth that defies my daily experience. I might vote for the myth, and in the process, against my actual interests, values, and beliefs, before I clock back in, grateful that for my 40 on the dusty, concrete floor, my co-workers are super genuine people, welcoming and helpful, that we are a team in the most tangible and practical ways possible, that we keep each other safe, that we care about our craft, that we share the incredibly challenging tack and task of making a living worth living, one hour at a time together. That for most people living and working this way—what we called essential during the Pandemic—it is not, holistically-speaking, a choice.

I might wonder, then, can you blame us for calling the light to fill us? For mistaking a shadow dressed up as a shiny, red light for the light we need and yearn for? So, here’s to upping the ante for filling the shadows, especially the ones on my usual side of the divide, the side with lots of choices, so that a true light can shine through for us all.

Big love, Ashley

P.S. With our Fall issue, FED opens wide the doors for anyone and everyone to add their voice by contributing to a FED Friendsgiving. I genuinely hope that you will share your taste of home with us. The table awaits…

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