Repair

​Let’s talk awhile about Repair.I am at work. I am looking around at the things I have repaired over the years, just here, in this room, and it’s a pretty long list.​I broke a stainless bolt off the foot of my effluent scrubber. I was so frustrated. It happened while I was uncrating it. It was brand-stinkin’-new! And I broke the foot off.I had to drill it out (no small feat, it was stainless!) and then re-tap, re-cut threads, and manufacture a new foot with all-thread I found at the hardware store.I did that.​I have patched holes in the roof. I have re-soldered circuitry on my bag filler.I have repaired and maintained my roasting machine a number of times. Everything from replacing burners to rewiring for data-logging software.​And this is my current roaster! A beautiful San Franciscan SF-25, built by hand in Nevada of largely American made parts and pieces, which I prefer and appreciate mostly because of the easy availability of replacement parts. The machine I began my career on, the machine that built this business, is resting in pieces in a storage unit.I will not go into great detail here and now, but it was also built by hand, a one-off fabrication some dude built in a garage in Olympia. I repaired, and repaired, and rewired, and rebuilt that roaster endlessly.It was maddening in its need for attention. Like a toddler, that thing demanded my constant supervision. And like some toddlers I’ve known, if left to its own devices, that roaster would surely have burnt the house down. That thing knew how to throw a proper spark. ​I have repaired espresso machines and I have repaired coffee brewers from various manufacturers and with varying degrees of competency. I’ve been to trainings and I’ve learned on the job. I’ve glued things back together out of sheer need, and I’ve paid dearly for new parts to swap in.​I think of my home.My tractor won’t start right now. It’s a fuel issue, I’m fairly certain, but I haven’t cracked into it yet. It’s cold out there! But I’ll get to it, and it’ll run.​I am, in truth, stalling.Right now, here, as I write these words.The toilet and shower are backed up in my home. I know exactly what the problem is—it’s a way the pipes were set up improperly in the first place, and it’d be a monumental challenge to tear them out and replace them properly now.So when I get home, I will address the issue, without fixing the underlying cause. C’est la vie. ​When I think of repair, I think of Thrift.And I think of the why behind repair.It’s not just money. It’s not just that I couldn’t possibly afford to buy my way out of a given repair project in my life.It is, for me, a value.​A value for avoiding superfluous resource spending, and a value for having my hands on my life.I do not want to go under my house today. I do not want to get the contents of my sewer pipes all over myself.But I do want to have the job done, and I want it done correctly, and I’d prefer it be done expediently. And, as we established in capability, I am capable of many things. So I do them.​I appreciate people’s work and I appreciate people who work with their hands.Because look at the alternative.​We live in a world of cheap consumer goods. We live in a world of inexpensive landfills. I just put stuff in a special can and a person comes and makes my hassles disappear into nowhere.We live in a world where we ship bales of fast fashion castoffs to faraway locales for people to sort through endlessly in their quest out of poverty.We live in a world where children in other countries work at sorting our e-waste, scrapping for bits of conductive metals to sell back to us in the form of even more cheap consumer goods.​And I am repulsed. I am alarmed.I am making choices in my own life that hopefully reduce my impact on these systems, but I feel so small. I feel so insignificant.​I buy durable shoes. I have my blue jeans repaired when they tear. I attempt to buy high-quality shirts, preferably ones produced in a responsible fashion in a country with high standards of laborer compensation.This means I spend more money on fewer t-shirts. I spend money on jean repair. I spend more money on shoes less frequently.I am not sure I’m saving money. And I know I’m not personally saving the Earth.​So why am I doing this stuff?It’s something about Agency.It’s something about living a life that I can be proud of and satisfied with. For and within my own self. ​(...A few hours later...)​I have taken a break from writing and fixed my septic backup.It was a relatively disgusting and straightforward procedure, and one of my kids helped me.​We learned how to do it better next time, and discussed strategies for managing the problem with the plumbing in the future.We did save a little money.But more importantly to me, we lived our lives together.We were not on our phones. We were not sectioned off from one another. We were knee-deep in the problem, together.​I showed my kid that a thing could be done, and in the process, I learned the same lesson myself.It makes us feel brave. We can do hard things.We saved money, we saved the gasoline needed for a repair person to come deal with the situation, and we saved a lot of time.We were in and outta there in less than an hour. We might’ve waited for days to get on somebody’s non-emergency schedule.​I reflect again on my pickup truck.I’ve chosen repair. I’ve chosen to upgrade instead of replace.Because when you repair something, you aren’t just fixing a machine.You are building a relationship with the physical world.You are telling the entropy of the universe: “Not today.” Get full access to Nick Walton at nickfromoregon.substack.com/subscribe