I love symbolism. I suppose it’s a quirk of literary people. Maybe?
I’m sure we all remember that I graduated from college about a month ago. I sort of hate it. I decided after only two weeks that I missed it too much and I had to go to grad school. To go to graduate school, I have to take the GRE and how, I thought, can I study for the GRE unless I have a desk?
So began my great search for the desk of my dreams. I found one I liked online and showed it to my sister for her style input. She said of her husband, “Oh, he can just make that for you.”
We began a process of adapting the picture of desk on Target’s website to something we could feasibly build. We each drew up plans separately and when the plans virtually matched, we began to gather supplies.
It was about a week between deciding to do it and the beginning of actually doing it. We measured and measured and cut and measured. We sanded and sanded and sanded some more. We painted leg pieces. We pre-treated, stained, stained again, and finished the top. We started putting things together. Then, we realized that our angles must have not been exact because the spread of the legs and somehow become too wide. We came up with a new design that used all of the same pieces and went with it. Somehow in its finished form, the desk grew 1 3/4″ taller than we’d planned. Angles, I guess.
Today, we finally put in the last piece… The shelves in the legs.
I have never been so proud of a thing before. It’s different than a piece of writing, which is an idea that you’ve run through your mouth and your fingers on a keyboard. The desk didn’t come from my brain and perhaps its imperfections are freeing because I only expect perfection from my brain. It is the best part of me. I expect the best.
It is good for me to look down and know that one of the left front legs doesn’t quite reach the floor but that the desk still stands. It is good to hear a slight creak when I lean too hard against it. It is good to remember that on the right side, there is a screw which pokes through the wood but that the shelf it supports will still hold.
I suppose that what really matters is that I finished it and it is good. It is the best I could have reasonably done. I am not superstitious but I feel that this is the perfect desk for grad school. It holds in its imperfections the perfect lesson. I can’t quite articulate what that lesson is, but I think it means I can do it.
Lindsey Grundyson 