Today, upon my mothers request, I made a basket. Yesterday she went to Old Sturbridge Village for a historical documents class for the library and at the gift shop she bought me a basket making kit and asked me to make her the basket.
Our family, of course, already has more cute baskets in our old house than rational person could possibly need. I think she just wanted me to do a hand-craft, to reconnect with the old ways of doing things. I would argue that the old way of acquiring a basket would involve using a basket we already owned.
Alas, today I enjoyed the pleasure of hand-making a redundant basket. I made it not to produce a necessary product, but to enjoy making something with my own hands. An existential pleasure of hand basket making. It was neither about production nor progress (in fact, it's a little bit about regress); but rather about stepping back to an older time, sitting still, and quiet, and accomplishing something of my own.
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