Last week, I finally had the opportunity to "stick" the last remaining rocks in place. The process of fitting rocks into place is a bit like assembling a picture puzzle but in a free-form kind of way - wet, sticky mortar was used, and I was able to adjust the height of varying thicknesses of rock so that they were relatively level. For some reason I thought it would be better not to cut rocks, but simply to let them find their own places. "The Tao of stone masonry." A certain frame of mind is required for this kind of work.
At this point, dry mortar is used, and in a painstaking and labor-intensive method, I pushed and brushed and filled all of the cracks. This is called "pointing" and I suppose the etymology derives from the point of a trowel. And now I am almost finished!
There is something immensely satisfying about slow, patient work. It is the same with stacking firewood, or writing a poem, or running a long distance - step by step, little by little, the magic of patience does it work. I stopped to stretch from time to time, to draw a deep breath and look at the profusion of green June everywhere overhead and around me, to hear the birds singing. Pure magic! And that Samuel Johnson quote that has seen me through several marathons comes to mind: "Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."
But I ask myself - is this cross-training for running? Or is it the reverse?
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