Real Things

 Yesterday Jared and I plus L and L drove up to the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle to visit the violin shop.  I have been to our lovely one-man violin shop in our neighborhood many times with little things, but Jared and I had some business with our concert instruments to attend to.  When that's the case, we go to the place where the proprietor has previously worked in the big shops in Chicago and London and who, when the LA Phil found their stolen Strad waterlogged and falling apart in an alley, send it to him for restoration. 

It's an old Victorian neighborhood with small yards, big trees, old brick store fronts, and a cliff-front view of the Sound.  No parking lots, you just find an empty spot along a quiet residential street.  The shop is old, and quite an ugly box from the outside.  The downstairs is the store front.  The proprietor lives in the upstairs.  The shop is a meandering and haphazard set of rooms flowing here and there, remodeled bit by bit over probably mote than a century to meet the needs of the year.  Some rooms are higher and some are lower.  The furniture is a comfortable mismatch of antiques and newer things, all made from real, sturdy, solid wood and glass.  There is none of the popular, slick, grey and white Scandinavian styling with MCM throwbacks, horizontal striping, and the angular tropical plant thrown in for good measure. Thr place is filled with real art - paintings, drawings, old prints, very real things collected slowly over time.  Nothing is thrown together to create an impression - it's the history of interwoven lives.  No canned music assaults the senses, a rarity in any business now.  The only screens are in the business office, a room off to the side, stuffed with file drawers, random odds and ends, and a computer.

There are four people working the shop.  Front desk/office manager/keeps-things-running is a fabulously friendly and kind person who remembers all repeat customers and loves to see the kids come in. With her incredible skill, she sews up the business end of things while the three nerds in the workshop make magic with old wood, inherited from retired makers, and harvested once upon a time in the Mittenwald area of southern Germany.

That high-ceilinged workshop, with a couple of windows into the back alley, is the heart of the operation.  No carpets there ,but.lots of stains and wood shavings.  Workbenches, padded cello gurneys, violins and violas (or pieces thereof) hanging by their scrolls from sturdy wires, drawers and racks of woodworking tools, measuring devices, magnifying glasses, small burners with pots of hot water and hide glue, paint brushes, bridge jacks...  There are the three fellows in there, wearing aprons, doing real things to real objects with their hands, just as people have done for centuries and centuries and centuries.  There is a camaraderie amongst them as they work on their various projects- the two younger fellows in their 30s or 40s and the grey-haired, unassuming, but quick and focussed giant-in-his-field.  

He started working in the shop at 12, when it was owned by his predecessor, earning money to help pay for his violin studies.  After working in some of the biggest shops in the world, he came back to this quiet neighborhood when Seattle was a smaller, quirkier place, and bought the business when the previous owner retired.  Not only the LA Phil, but people from all over the world send him their gnarliest and most valuable projects; he sits at the workbench with his midas touch and makes scraps of wood sing.  It seems like a wonderful life.

What has it got in its pocketses?

This is what I currently have in my coat pockets:

In my left pocket I have a loop end bolt that I picked up when it fell off the laundry line after its nut went missing.  I put it in my coat pocket so as to keep track of it until such a time as I get around to finding a new nut.  Later it was joined by the pink glass bead with its half a metal liner, found on the living room floor while vacuuming.   The intention was to not lose it until I found the button box.  Meanwhile, it became clear that while I am walking, I'd best put the loop of the bolt around the tip of my left pinky, with the small opening facing into my hand, so that I can move the bead around on the stalk with my thumb while I go on my daily walk.  

The right pocket contains a shell fragment from the beach that a child handed me for safekeeping, and I immediately recognized a small, smooth depression fit for rubbing with my right thumb.  This one gets used simultaneous while walking.

In addition, my frequent stops at the smaller grocery on my walk for daily requested kid rations sometimes finds me picking up a small packet of my old favorites - peanut M&Ms.  They seemed expensive to me back in my Cleveland days at 75c a unit.  They cost even more now, and my inner 22-year-old is horrified at the extravagance.  If I do eat the contents of one of these packets on the return trip, I fold the empty envelope into even eighths and place it in my left pocket until such a time as I find the proper receptacle.