have begun restoring an old fish house on our McNutt’s Island property into guest quarters for those times when we have more visitors to our island home than our small 19th century house can accommodate.  The little fish house sits on rocks at the water’s edge overlooking Shelburne Harbor.  It is very old.  Many hands have added their touches to it over the years.  It’s hard to say what it looked like originally.  What’s not hard to say, however, is that today in every way and from every angle, it is crooked.

Viewed from the water’s edge it leans heavily to the north.  Part of this may be attributable to the unevenness of the rocks upon which the little house sits.  Yet even accounting for this, the house still leans too far to the north.   The door on its south side, perpendicular  to the shore, sags to the west.  It’s rusty hinges have loosened over time, but in fact the whole door jam is cockeyed.  Inside, each of the studs and cross poles have their own unique and literal slant on things, which  is to say that none of them agrees with the other.  There is one window that looks out to the harbor, as if whoever worked inside always wanted to keep the sea in view.  It is perhaps the only even part of the entire house.  I used my level to confirm this.

But alas, I want to move this window to the other side of the house to make room for four new windows which will afford any visitor a lovely full view of the harbor.  So I must take the only even thing in the house and apply it to its new uneven wall, as well as install four new replacement windows into a wall that refuses to agree with the other three walls.

I could simply force my level on the whole house, but this might be too cruel a trick on the old structure, an affront to its character.  Yes, it would adjust, but not without losing a measure of integrity.

Instead, I have decided to set my level aside and let the fish house dictate the angles.  It will mean that while nothing will be perfectly true, nothing also will be made to look completely out of sorts.  Call me an appeaser, but I want every hand that has had a say in the structure to feel respected including my own, and I could not be happy if I felt I had dishonored any aspect of the little house.  After all, the house has stood here on the ocean’s edge for probably over 150 years.  That ought to count for something.   

I would like to think that as I grow old, when I start leaning in all directions, others will respect my angles on things in a similar way.  No doubt parts of me will also be contradictory and occasionally out of sorts, but I will be who I have truly become.  In the eyes of others and perhaps my God, I would want that to count for something as well.