Building Together: Reflections from Yestermorrow
As I write, I’m en route to Palm Springs to celebrate the wedding of one of my dearest college friends and get to meet their nibling for the first time. For now, I want to reflect on the magical week I had in Vermont at the Yestermorrow women+ intro to basic carpentry workshop I attended with my “cousin”/friend Jess mid-March.
The week was so immersive, I barely had the time or wherewithal to take notes. As soon as I saw the drafting tables in the studio where we introduced ourselves, I remembered I had taken drafting in high school! Walking through the basics of reading architectural plans, it all came rushing back to me—even how to figure out the unmarked measurements in the in-between spaces. I got excited about figuring out the roof angles and the chance to whip out some trigonometry. And thus I became known for my nerdy precision. It turns out all you need is a roofing square to mark the rise and run.
We began with our motivations. For me, it was a natural course in a transition to rural life. A life where I expect I’ll need to evaluate the beams and the build of a future home, steward its maintenance, and make it my own. Half of the education is learning what you can handle yourself and what you need the professionals for.
Tongue and Groove
From day one, we bonded quickly and deeply. Our group chat started over a meal that first day, and soon we were sharing divorce stories, family histories, and current crushes.
Yestermorrow felt like camp, like college, like my UWS pottery community, like my late in life queer coming-out group, like my Dungeon World party. Which is to say, it felt like being in deep creative, playful community that forms quickly and intimately in an intensive place of learning and growing.
On day two, we finished sinking nails into the completed deck. We captured a couple album-cover worthy group shots (one cute, one practicing taking up space). The fresh dance floor beckoned and we sang Pink Pony Club. When our instructors Sarah and Hannah jumped up on the platform with us, I knew something special was happening.
We all felt so much like ourselves the whole week. I know I let my truest self shine from the moment I squealed with delight when we learned that the book collection had been organized by Library of Congress classification. I sang out relevant lyrics as they came to me. I pulled tarot and we opened the circle in three part harmony, confidently with boygenius behind us as scaffolding. We pulled resonant recurring cards in a Yestermorrow-inspired spread: root, trunk, canopy. The Chariot taking the reigns, The Queen of Cups with her eyes on the ocean horizon, the Hanged One shifting perspective in a literal tree.
We showed up exactly as we were, exactly where we were, in whatever transitional state that inspired us to step out of our regular lives and take up the unknown in the first place.
And others could feel it, too. Longer term winter woodworkers and Yestermorrow staff reflected that we were a special crew. Was it the full moon, the Venus eclipse, the Mercury retrograde?
As we reflected around the table on our final day, tears flowed freely and unashamedly.
Tool Belts
Our instructors, Sarah and Hannah (both twins, not to each other—a synchronous coincidence for this daughter of an identical twin). Sarah offered wisened aphorisms and practical wisdom with a quiet, steady, encouraging energy. “Sometimes the edges matter more than the center.” Hannah offered us personal attention and guided us towards our growth edges (“come check out this laser level!”). They had never taught together before, but they offered their expertise, guidance, encouragement, honesty, mastery, and enthusiasm.
On day two, when Hannah offered to let me try out her personal hammer. Without thinking I said "I thought you'd never ask." She replied, "All you had to do was ask!" That hammer felt perfect in my hand—the extra-long ergonomic handle, the worn hickory, the titanium head light enough for my swing but powerful enough to sink deck nails deep.
I loved that hammer so much I bought one of my own—not just as a souvenir or talisman, but as a fundamental tool that felt right in my hands. I needed this Stiletto to come home with me, to remind me of the work I've done and that special week for years to come.
Portals to our Power
This week channeled the power that I have been cultivating.
"You've got your hammer and you've got your roofing square. You're ready to join the crew," Hannah told me after I quickly marked off my rafter cuts. The sense of competence reminded me of talents left behind—geometry, trigonometry, drafting, design, even quilting.
Our final day, I was tasked with making the door to the shed from scratch. I really did do it all by myself, aside from guidance check-ins from Sarah, our wizard teacher.
I measured precisely across corners, shoving one side a quarter inch to ensure it was perfectly square before methodically drilling and sinking screws into the double Zs. The satisfaction of that final cut with the circular saw was immense.
Future Building
Our task now is to “go forth and build shit!” We've scattered back to our lives, but the connections remain. Mary has already ripped up her carpet and filled her truck with floorboards for her island home. Eileen has fixed the dryer vent on the tenant side of her duplex. Arissa continues work on her chicken run with confidence. Jamie’s wife will be pleased with their newfound precision with power tools. Jess and I plan to build a tenting platform, fire pit benches for the cove, and raised gardening beds. Sarah has invited us Mainers to a work party to help with the next stages of her slow-build house.
As Hannah observed, we're heading into spring—the river turning green with mountain melt. Passing through Boston, the crocuses, snow drops, and hellebore are in bloom. In Owls Head, I have forsythia to force and tulips and allium bulbs to look forward to. For now, I'll make my cottage rental more mine in small ways, leaving it better than I found it, while looking ahead to building new homes—both literal and metaphorical.
What a radical thing we did to learn, grow, process, and build together when dominant forces are dismantling the structures and scaffolding meant to protect and govern us. It’s even radical to foster and celebrate a crush when the world is on fire.
We built a shed that will allow children to play outside, to store their belongings, to offer shelter when it rains, and to take care of their needs. I drove home to Boston, excitedly sharing pictures, plans, and my new hammer to by 8 and 6 year-old-nieces. Matching my enthusiasm, Juliet showed me around her father’s tool bench in the basement.
This is what feminine governance looks and feels like: It is well resourced, curious, patient, vulnerable. It is expansive enough to contain all of our parts. It’s full of metaphor, music, poetry, impromptu ritual, and nourishing communal meals. It reminds us of our strengths and recognizes competence, while pushing our growth edges and conquering our fears. It celebrates pleasure and joy shamelessly. It is constructive, reparative, restorative. It is scaffolding, studs, containers, and portals. Most of all it is powerful. Like a well-worn hickory handled titanium hammer, lighter but more impactful. My stiletto is a totem and talisman, as much as a forever tool in my tool belt.
#kerfsnotterfs #stagnantwaterbreedsdisease #tongueandgroove #physicswinsoverchemistry
Joy Well
These are some glimmers of joy, creativity, and introspection that have kept me going this week:
Lucy Dacus, Forever is A Feeling: The full album dropped today, but I’ve already had Best Guess, Ankles, Limerence, and Talk on constant repeat. Shoutout to whoever is Lucy’s publicist, because they are putting. in. the. work. and giving us queer joy love stories we need for these times. I can’t wait to spin my zoetrope LP. “How lucky we are to have so much to lose.”
The Audacity: I’ve been joining every Saturday to sing as a form of resistance. Using my voice, harmonizing with new neighbors across generations is the form of hyper-local solidarity that I need right now. Each week the gathering numbers rise—upwards of 200 last week. The waves and honks of support, as well as the peels of angry rubber from diesel trucks, remind us why we are there, in public, together. And I think they are hearing us, because there was some flag drama last week.
Book clubs: If you know me, you know I love a book club. (m)otherboard collective is starting a tech justice book club, starting with fellow god(m)other Coraline’s We Just Build Hammers book. Framing, language, storytelling, and metaphor are some of the most powerful tools in our tool belt for organizing systemic change because they give life to thought, to feelings, to shared values and aspirations. Join the (m)otherboard community—it’s pay what you can to explore past, present, and future alternative visions for our relationship to technology.
Carpooling to friends’ shows: I went to the Bonnie and Louisa Stanicoff show in Blue Hill, riding bitch with new Midcoast friends through a foggy, meandering conversation that covered island ghost stories, good therapists, and cow farts. It felt novel to be driven through Lincolnville and Belfast in the backseat of not-my-parents’ car.
In solidarity,
🔮 Sara