The impeded stream is the one that sings. -Wendell Berry
Work is not my natural state. I know people for whom work IS a natural state. My Grandpa Dunn was one of those. He retired after 30 years as a millwright and two days later he was back doing the work he’d done before that: a carpenter. He worked at that until the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that killed him progressed to the point that he was unable to work.
My friend Dave Cuckler is another one. Since I met him more than 10 years ago, he’s “retired” at least 3 times that I can recall. He’s an amazing musician and works at jobs that still allow him to write songs and perform. But he still works, lately as a parts delivery driver for an auto parts chain. The last time I visited him, he told me he enjoyed being around other people and work was a good way for him to do that. In contrast to my Grandfather, whose work often meant hours alone in the workshop he built from the ground up or on worksites in the area that always meant he was home for supper.
When I state that work is not my natural state, that’s not to say I don’t work. At this point, in my various occupations and 10,000 useless jobs, I’ve done a little bit of everything. Some white collar. A lot of blue collar. Some “professional” of course if you consider teaching and muckraking professions. (I don’t.) I’ve been a bartender, a dishwasher, a bouncer, a file clerk. I worked 3rd shift one summer at a 3D Styrofoam deer target manufacturer in Winchester, Kentucky. For a while I was a dental office receptionist in New Orleans, much to the disgust of patriarchal antebellum old ladies who believed I stole some poor woman’s job.
And because I’ve done enough different kinds of work, I’ve come to understand that all work is essentially the same. I’ve done the work I was trained for — education — and done work I had no business doing at all. I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be doing the work I’m currently getting paid for “event staff” –which I’m told isn’t security but feels an awful lot like it. It’s not good on my feet or my back. After I’m done working an event I can barely walk. But after 9 months of not working and not being able to navigate Kentucky’s draconian unemployment system (made even more bureaucratically useless during the pandemic) this gig is the only reasonable work I’m able to find. And I don’t mind it, especially. The inevitable dread is derived from my knowing just how much physical pain I’ll be in when my shift is over. Most of my bosses’ bosses are younger than my daughter. I don’t really care about that, either. The tedium of the job doesn’t bother me because all work is tedious.
Other than the physical pain I know I’ll have to deal with, the only thing about the job that bothers me is the same thing that bothers every job: it gets in the way.
But I end up insisting myself into the world of work anyway. It’s not because I have some need to be a “productive member of society” like the AA Big Book and every guidance counselor and political hack seems to think I need to be. The only society I feel any obligation to is my marriage. I’m not much of the old-fashioned
“provider” type and I’m glad she doesn’t expect me to be. She does have the right to expect me to be a partner, though, and so I try and make a little money to help pay bills and help keep a roof over our heads. She doesn’t expect me to make a certain amount of money and she’s never done more than ask me to spend more time at home than out, since she knows I have to go out on travel-abouts to keep my head straight… because that is my natural state. Being in motion is my natural state. But for now, I’m here. Until the current shifts… which it will. Soon.
