The Contractor
03.24.2012 
It is good to like your contractor.
We don’t just like our contractor,
we love him.
Loving your contractor—that matters to me.
I come from a family of builders.
In 1950, my father created a construction company in Phoenix, Arizona that is still going strong today.
My fearless brother, Jon, started a green building company a few years ago at the lowest depth of the recession, when the last thing you’d bet on in Phoenix was the success of a fledgling construction company. That is, if you didn’t know Jonny.
The company is flourishing, exploding, really.
Jon and his business partner, Lorenzo, have more jobs than they can handle. The city of Phoenix is so impressed with their community-enhancing projects that they are offering matching funds.
Attitude. Like my father, my brother has the most life-enhancing attitude of just about anyone I know, so magic abounds in his life. You think I’m exaggerating? Try clearing up your ‘tude and watch the magic you attract!
Back to our Paris contractor. Andrew is a quick, tall, slender man of forty, who was raised in South Africa. He came to Paris at the age of 21, and he now speaks the most perfect French of anyone we know whose first language was English.
Andrew did a renovation of our Paris apartment, and has done repairs to it since. His work is impeccable, reasonably priced and finished when he promises to finish.
So who do you think we called to make a few upgrades to our chambre de bonne?
Andrew came by early this week and we sat around our dining room table over coffee and told stories about noisy neighbors. He, like we, lives on the fifth floor of a building, in another arrondissement. (We live in the fifth, the arrondissement of the Book People, the Latin Quarter, where teaching began at the University of Paris, the first in Europe, in the mid-eleventh century.)
A quiet young American woman lived above him. Then she attracted a French boyfriend, Big Foot.
A contractor’s life begins early in the morning and is hard-driving all day. It requires a good night of sleep. The couple upstairs banged around late at night.
Andrew knocked on their door and politely asked for quieter footsteps so late at night. She slammed the door in his face. (And he’s the president of his syndic!)
Another night, they awakened him at 2 a.m. He got out of bed, went upstairs and knocked. No response.
“I know you’re in there,” he called out, “I can hear you. Come to the door, please.”
The boyfriend opened the door and said, “Stop bothering my girlfriend.”
Andrew had no desire to bother the man’s girlfriend, he said, but they were disturbing his sleep!
Who are these people with no empathy, no compassion for others?
We know Andrew. We know his request would have been made in a tactful, reasonable way.
How was it going with our noisy neighbor, Andrew asked.
She’ll be quiet for a few days, so we turn off our white noise fan, and then each succeeding day she’s noisier and noisier.
It’s strange to me, this incapacity some people have to feel others’ reality, this narcissism: Here are my needs. Don’t bother me with yours.
Richard and I walked with Andrew to have a look at our chambre de bonne.
Andrew looked at the place with a contractor’s eyes. “What a mess,” he exclaimed. “What I’d do is knock out this wall and this, and open it into one big room.”
“But we don’t own it,” we said.
He looked around at the red tomettes (floor tiles), which were so old the floor in places rose and fell like the surface of the sea.
He looked at the overhead lights, which were strung on two low-voltage wires all across the ceiling of the kitchen and main room like circular doilies on a clothesline.
He looked at the sink, which had been painted over and was now cracking in spots as if covered with petrified yogurt.
“It does need a few repairs,” I conceded.
Andrew laughed gaily, as if to say, “A few, she says!”
“The landlord is willing to pay to refinish the sink and to fix that baseboard,” Richard said. The baseboard looked as if mice had been gnawing it. There were little holes where it met the floor.
My enchantment with the place had taken a hit. My spirits were sinking.
“It might need painting,” I allowed.
“That’s the least of what it needs,” said Andrew.
We three moved from room to room, making a list of what needed doing: shelves in the bathroom, a couple of missing shelves in the built-in bookshelf, the sink refinished, Ovideu, the whimsical Romanian electrician consulted about whether the ungrounded plugs would still protect my computer if it was plugged into a surge protector.
Andrew said he could spare a carpenter and a painter next week from another job on the Île de la Cité.
We locked the door to our chambre de bonne, waved goodbye to Andrew and headed home.
I was blue the rest of the day. So much of enchantment is subjective. You fall in love with someone or something, and you do not want to hear someone say about your beloved, “What a dog!”
But if the love is true, it lasts.
All night long, half asleep, I envisioned what I’d do to this chambre de bonne: a sisal rug with the right pad beneath would solve the sea-sick-inducing floor. A built-in horseshoe-shaped desk would fit perfectly into the room. The lighting store at the end of our street had a great selection of lights.
I envisioned the stories and poems I’d write, the creative life I’d have in this magical aerie. I began fiddling with the end of a certain short story in my mind.
And then I remembered, This has nothing to do with the surface of the room. It was a matter of atmosphere, of soul. Every writer knows that feeling of walking into a room and thinking, I could write here! It might have something to do with the proportions of the room, it might be the view or the lack thereof, but I think it has more than anything to do with the sense, Here I could work without being interrupted. That is the essential thing that writers need: deep immersion in the dream of the work.
The next morning I asked myself a question: Would Baudelaire have loved this room?
Oh yes he would! I answered.
Then it’s good enough for me. The blues fled, the enchantment returned, and I loved my contractor again.
Reader Comments (20)
Superb. I love the combination of imagery and words in all your posts. And what? A certain je ne sais quoi, an intimate and perceptive stroll through familiar emotions and circumstances!
Solid story with wonderful undulations....like the floor.....like our moods. Keep up the magic you two! Printing it right now for Betty~mom. Hugs, Suki
Yes, happiness is entirely subjective. As a natural pessimist/cynic, I had to learn how to be happy as an essential ingredient.
It's a discipline, of sorts.
And one of the places I find happiness is Paris Play. Is it my imagination, or did Richard outdo himself this time with images that were not only apropos (that, always) but that had a roar about them? Girth and weight and, well, an undeniable masculine SCENT to them....?
Love and other subjective emotions…. Let not your inner vision be deterred nor your dreamscape be marred by realism. Pshaw! Your soul knows what's right with the place — delicious "faults" and all. A clean, sterile room would not evoke the same muse of imagination and flow of words and story you crave.
We desperately need imperfection; who is the one to judge? I love crumbling surfaces that are layered with life's tracks, worn and layered with a mysterious patina of illusive meanings. You can't make these jewels...even if you wanted to. Theres an echo, a faint handprint of time that is totally unique to each place. Rare...It is ART! It's this very layering that attracts me to what Richard is capturing in the city. Authentic “marks”.
Perhaps the undulating floor will create a new rhythm to your work. It's like a ship sailing on a new sea. You are captain and passenger.
Happy Sailing!!!
Love,
Joanne
Great illustrations Richard… are you shooting for the story or pulling from your vast archives??? Your photos are always brilliant and poetically capture in image what’s being told.
Dear Susan,
Thank you so much! We love that you are enjoying Paris Play. And we'll be even happier when we're enjoying some Paris play right in this city with you.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Dear Suki,
That is such a fresh description, the "undulations...like the floor... like our moods." Very poetic. Life itself is magic, right?
Give Betty a big hug. And thank you for your words, and for bringing a copy of the post to her.
Have a blast in NYC!
Love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Anna!
You're kidding. You a pessimist? A cynic? I find that hard to believe. You're as so life-affirming and radiant.
Oh, I agree, Richard keeps outdoing himself with his photos. And he does have a wonderful roar about him, a great masculine scent.
We're so happy to hear that we've added to your great store of happiness, Anna.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
K & R,
What a sigh of relief it was for me to read your conclusion and resolution that this is a place where your creativity could flow, without interruption. These are the prime conditions I now fiercely maintain in my personal world to the greatest conscious extent possible. The results for me, are that I am have been "spoiled' with great continuity of flow. Flow is not just a word, it is my lifestyle.
One of the ways I do this consciously, is by regularly asking, 'Where am I at in the cycles of life?" I've identified and value every point now. Emptiness (awaiting numinous instruction), establishing a foundation, planting seeds, tenderly cultivating, harvest, etc.
That being said, the appearance of chaos that precedes new structures is also part of the flow, as illustrated by Richard's photos. The photos well-depicted to me, some points in the cycles of creation, the 'fragile" structure, the gutted interior, the shirtless men doing the manual labor.
I've come to view the non-empathetic neighbors and Big Foots of the world as nudges for my creative waters to flow in unforseen fruitful directions, inspiring me to create new eddies, tap into and develop inner resources.
Again, I thank you for the reading and visual pleasures of P.P. What you and Richard share supports my/the flow.
Love,
Marguerite
A comment on people who have no empathy or, at least, courtesy: There's a new phenomenon here -- the texter. Everywhere we go, there are people walking with heads bent forward, fingers working furiously. Yesterday, in an elevator, as soon as the doors opened, a women elbowed her way out, exhibiting classic texter form, leaving people in wheelchairs, elderly people, and all others in her wake. When Bill said to her, "Hey, lady. Some day you're gonna fall down!" she never even turned around. But, at the risk of going off course here, I now think texting is a new form of mental illness -- the zombie texter. I wonder if they'll come up with a cure.
Congratulations on your chambre de bonne. I'm sure it will be the cocoon from which great work will emerge.
I HAD A BRIEF INTIMATION TONIGHT
I had a brief intimation tonight of the
place I write this
brain-flash heart stuff, not
obscured by water-faucets, dust, having to
get up, get out, get back, take the
garbage out, nor
these particular walls, sounds, darknesses, interruptions,
but a sunken room with no books in it, no
shelves, no one
else's words strung together in
any way, and either
high up overlooking the city at night far away
down below it with its
starry street-light twinkles, but so
far away as to be
totally silent, there is a
curving away at
either side of my
peripheral vision of pale
blue walls, going almost
infinitely out at
either side to where it
no longer matters, and there is the
great plate-glass window, also curved, and the room is
cut off from the
rest of the
house, perched on a
hillside, or else
upside-down to the night somewhere near where
owls live and hunt, in a
woods so deep you hear the
great almost clumsy flap of their
wings as they
swoop on prey, upside-
down to the night, a room that is
so impenetrably
deep in the
heart of nature it has become
super-nature, at an
opposite pole, and the
arc-light of electricity jumping between them
is the room I write these
odes to the Unknown in, and the
splatter of lights cleaves our
ego in two in one
burst, we are left
naked and yawning as an arroyo in the
dark with its
dry mouth of shale turned up
as wide as it can
trying to drink stars!
___________________
(from The Perfect Orchestra, The Ecstatic Exchange, 2009)
Joanne,
You totally get it! It's the pentimento that we love. The layers. (Did you know that that word comes from the Italian word for "repent?" A starting over in a painting. Layers upon layers.
The sisal rug guy said he could counteract the undulating floor with an underpad. But looking at his estimate now, I might stick with the metaphor of ship and sailor and let it roll!
Richard pulls photos from his archives that uncannily mirror the story, yet always surprise me. He is still a poet, just one of photographic images now.
Thank you so much, Joanne.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Marguerite,
What a beautiful description of flow. And the question you ask yourself is wise: "Where am I at in the cycles of life?" To see it as a flowing continuum helps you get through times when obstacles seem more numerous than fulfillment. Excellent!
And thank you for a fresh perspective on the non-empathetic neighbors and Big Foots of the world. There's always one lurking in everyone's life. A question of how to handle it.
Thank you so much for your appreciative words!
Love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Dear Ruth,
This description fascinates me. I think texting may not be as prevalent here as in California. What we do see so much of is people talking to invisible cell phones as they walk. That really does look crazy, like the whole world is talking to itself.
Your wishes: from your mouth to the gods' and goddesses' ears. Thank you!
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
Daniel!
A wonderful poem. Isn't it something how many writers end up with towers or rooms high up in buildings? Like Yeats in his tower, Thoor Ballylee, or Robinson Jeffers' Hawk Tower in Carmel (though he built that for his wife, Una). Your ideal writing room is high up or deep in nature, with owls! I hope you get it. But don't you want just a FEW books?
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Honoring the builder, our ever creative and positive brother. Fighting the desire for perfection. Creating a space where the imagination can soar.
This post speaks to every corner of my heart.
And I love Daniel's poem..... the owls are back on their nest in the woods behind my house. As well as Richard's visual poetry.
love,
ta soeur,
Jane
Chere Soeur, Jane,
Builders we know and love, perfectionism, and creative space for the imagination--family themes, huh? Delight to us is delighting you!
It's funny--in reading Daniel's poem, I thought of the owls behind your house. Even though I haven't spotted them, you've made them vivid by your stories.
Richard thanks you, too.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
Kaaren, just thinking about the journal entry about your new studio and its " imperfections". For me, I need to have a studio that's sort of a mess and full of edginess, the opposite of what I need in the place where I do my daily living. I hope you don't erase the ghosts and patina that exist there. I find these things to be fodder for my work. When I'm done with a series, my studio sort of looks like a tsunami just hit, or a giant creature just had a very difficult birthing. Anyway.....dont clean it up tooooo much, a ghost just might want to whisper into your ear. (just my two cents).
In other news, I just installed a show that I love and i'm feeling pretty up about it. It's "Mind Cones", small wall sculptures about the nature of mind and memory....they're very cool. I hope they can be photographed, it will be tricky because the effect depends a lot on lenses. If any pics work out, i'll forward you some. Much love, polly
Kaaren and Richard,
It is so fun to read your words, Kaaren, and feel as if I am talking to you on the phone or in person. You have such clarity and three dimensional imagery to your stories. The photos, Richard, have such depth, color and unusual textures that it is like standing in front of your captured scenes. They have a complex, stage-like presence to them. What a joy the two of you bring to our home. Talk soon my little chickadees! Love and happiness.
JAK
Jon,
What a wonderful message! Thank you. We celebrate you and your work and your spirit!
We send you gros bisous, big kisses, and to Leatrice and Lisanne, too.
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Polly,
This message is so great. I love the notion of embracing a mess (certainly not what I grew up with), and the contrast you need between your home and your work space. Also, the ghosts... A psychic told us there WAS a ghost of a woman there, and I imagine he's right.
Yay, a new show! Mind Cones, the nature of mind and memory: nothing interests me more. Send us photos!
I'm rereading Proust, getting ready to lead a Proust tour of Paris. That's all his six volumes of A Le Recherche du Temps Perdu is about. Looking for Lost Time: what else do artists ever do if they're real artists?
Love you,
Kaaren (& Richard)