Yogi’s Mitt Tells a Story
I moved into this little house almost three years ago. It was empty. And other than a pair of antique lamps and two small pine bookshelves, I had no furniture. I went to Home Depot and snagged a few two-by-fours, a couple of sheets of chipboard, and some screws. I spent an afternoon slapping together a simple rough desk with a friend of mine. It was functional but not much to look at. I promised myself that I’d build myself a proper desk when I had adequately furnished the rest of the house.
As you can probably tell, money was tight, and my goal was to save as much as much money as I possibly could. What little money I spent went towards some cookware, a badly needed computer upgrade, and endless repairs on an old Honda van a buddy had given me. I didn’t want to spend much on furniture, so I spent the next six months surfing Facebook groups looking for free or cheap stuff: a couple of chairs, an old mattress from a friend, a weird orange pleather couch, a huge black Ikea dining table, a small white Ikea dining table, and some wobbly cube shelves. My house is now a hodgepodge of styles. I feel like a magpie who’s decorated his nest with a bunch of found objects. And I love all of it–partly because I have a soft spot for misfits and partly because I’m just happy to have my own place.
But there’s another reason. I love living with objects that show their wear. Examples soon, but first, I want to explain an old concept I’ve been coming to terms with for years. Back when I lived as a full-time potter for a few years, I was obsessed with ideas of form, function, and beauty. I ran across an old essay on Japanese aesthetics by Soetsu Yanagi. In one passage, he bemoans the decline in the quality of everyday objects such as pottery, furniture, and clothing:
“… the more an object was used, the more its beauty became apparent. As our constant companions in life, such objects gave birth to a feeling of intimacy and even affection. The relation between people and things then was much deeper than it is today.”
I’ll concede that you can find some pretty shitty merchandise at your local Walmart or Dollar Store, but this post isn’t a screed about the declining quality of our stuff. Curmudgeons complaining that they just don’t make things like they used to have been around forever. And in a lot of cases, they’re wrong. For instance, a Honda Accord built today feels and performs much better than the same model built in 1981. (Trust me, I drove one for a couple of years in college. Yikes.) Also, very few people would say that an iPhone is poorly designed and engineered when compared to the stretchy-corded handset on my grandma’s phone table.
Sure, there are clear financial benefits to not having to replace things as often, and very few people prefer a dim, pixelated display to a bright, high-def screen. But those arguments are obvious and dull. So what’s the point of making something that lasts longer and performs better?
First, for some objects, it can take a long time to learn how to use something with subtlety and dexterity. Think of a good quality kitchen knife. If you use it often enough and pay attention to improving your skill, eventually, the knife becomes an extension of your hand. There’s a direct connection between what your brain wants and what the knife does. The same concept can apply to a well-made desk. The longer you use it, the better you understand your body’s relation to the way the desk organizes space. You act on the desk, and the desk acts back on you. Consider a coffee cup whose rim has been shaped to match the curve of a human lip as opposed to the straight-walled designs prioritizing fashionable styles or manufacturing efficiency.
Almost none of my furniture is well-made. I have one really good quality leather chair. So why do I still have so much affection for all this stuff?
I’ve come to understand a corollary to Yanagi’s argument that we develop substantial relationships with objects we use for long periods of time. Consider something like a well-worn baseball glove. As a kid, I loved baseball. I was a catcher, and I had the same glove from 8th grade through the end of high school. Catcher’s mitts are as tough as they come. They’re made with the heaviest leather and thickest padding because they take more abuse than any other glove. Even a good glove will need to be re-laced and regularly oiled. When you’re breaking in a baseball glove, two things are happening. You’re softening and loosening the leather so it catches better, but you’re also forming the glove to the shape of your hand and your particular way of using it. The flip side is that the design and construction of the glove both limits and affords the way you use it. You shape a well-worn glove, and the glove shapes you right back.
I’m fascinated by an adjective that most people take for granted: well-worn. Or maybe just wear it. I appreciate objects that wear their wear. Let’s stick with this catcher’s mitt for a little while longer. If you were to visit the Pro Baseball Hall of Fame, you might spend a few minutes in front of Yogi Berra’s catcher’s mitt which he caught for Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Stare at it long enough, and you can see the leather cracking in different places from catching thousands of pitches, smothering balls in the dirt, and tagging sliding baserunners at home plate. Berra’s mitt wears the stitched evidence of multiple tears. It offers no biography or batting stats, but the cracks and scuffs physically express the nuance and toughness of exactly how Berra played catcher. It’s gorgeous. And it’s not even my glove.
Not a single one of us is a Hall of Fame catcher, but I’d like to hope that each of us has something that tells something of our story. Sure, there’s a story behind that scar above your left eye, but our objects bear stories in the same way. For instance, twenty years ago, I helped a friend fire a wood-fire kiln at his studio in rural Minnesota. A few months later, he sent me one of the mugs we fired. Looking closely, I can see the texture of his skin from working with the clay. I can see the rhythm of his throwing motion in the lines on the body. I can feel the shape of his handmade tools on the mug’s foot. This cup bears his body and skill. Fire transforms the mug from brittle clay to solid rock. The flames of the wood fuel leave behind melted ash glaze settling in certain spots. Surface flashing reveals the path of flame over the clay body. A pot’s form reveals the story of its making. And also its history of use.
I’ve been using that mug for more than two decades. It has two chips along the lip and one on the handle. These aren’t flaws. They are plot points in the story the mug and I share.
Until a few months ago, I’d never owned a leather chair. Someone was giving it away on Facebook. They explained that it was an expensive chair, but it needed a bit of reconditioning, and their Great Dane had scratched it up a bit. I took it anyway. I brought it home and reconditioned the leather three times. It didn’t seem to improve it much. The worn patches stayed worn, and the scratches were still visible. It sits directly in front of my living room television, where I watch a ton of movies and baseball games. Looking at it now, it has started bearing our story. Oil from my skin has started to discolor the cushion on the left arm and backrest. The chair’s arms show where my palms land and where my fingers grip every time I get up. The cushions, ever so subtly, are slowly yielding to the shape of my body. By most people’s standards, it’s in worse shape than when I got it. But they’re wrong. It’s just becoming mine.
(P.S. I thought this blog post would reflect on why I took so long to start building the pieces of furniture I’d promised myself for so long. Maybe next post. I love it when I just sit my ass in the chair and start writing only to have some other idea hop into the car and give the wheel a good, hard turn.)
