Having a skill in your hands is a settling thing. I was trained as a rigger. Although it has been many years since I rigged professionally on our recent trip to Erie to work with the crew of Niagara I was asked to make a seizing.
Something almost magical happened when my hands took that spike. Suddenly, and for just a moment, I was complete. Or was I simply the person I had been 25 years ago when the most complicated thing in my life was the seizing I was turning? Muscle memory? Do your hands ever forget the tools they know so well?
As I turned my first marlin spike hitch I wished with all my heart that I could give that comfortable settled experience to all my kids. Not possible unless they decide to pick up the spike, the wrench, the running shoes, the oar for months at a time. When they do it will become to them a touchstone that they can visit for the rest of their lives.
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