The Hard Way

"All right, do it the hard way." My mother's voice-

the tone implies mulishness, snubbed advice,

and an easy way, of course, if only I'd listen.

This in the back of my head, a kind of drone bass

throbbing down the years. I recently watched

my father repair a gate-legged table he'd made

of solid cherry with heavy leaves, a beauty.

The patient's on her back and I play nurse,

supporting the game leg about to be braced.

Screws have come loose. He should have used

bigger screws in the first place. He finds bigger ones.

When he repositions the hinge the leg is cocked;

it won't close properly. Out come the screws

the same way they went in, with difficulty.

He tries again. The leg closes but the hinge

is upside down. Some of the holes don't match.

Out with the screws. Did this man make this table?

"Where did you learn woodworking?" I ask. "Didn't,"

he grunts, giving the screws a turn. "I always

tinker (grunt) like this. Do it the hard way."

I know what he's talking about. I myself

have lived more than half a century the hard way,

and yes, I've learned a thing or two. The hard way

to make fudge is to leave the room while it's boiling.

The hard way to stay on a bike is to keep your eyes

on the speedometer, seeing how fast you can go.

The hard way to have children is two at a time.

The hard way to cut down a tree is to let your

husband

do it. There are lots of hard ways to have sex.

The hard way to learn to play a musical instrument

is to practice. A year or so ago my father

started piano lessons. I think you know

how he goes at it. The hard way to find God

is to seek him among the living. The hard way to get

children to do something is to tell them to do it.

Another hard way is to ask them. Drinking martinis

is the hard way to stay sober. Nothing but hard

ways to write poems. I've watched the baby next

door

trying to throw the big blue ball. She raises it

over her head and heaves but it always goes

backwards.

She never believes it. Last year her sister

was learning to read as if in great pain.

The hard way to read is to stop at every letter.

Now she has finished Black Beauty, a wrenching tale,

and will soon move on to Gone With the Wind. Scarlett

will tell her about the hard way. Cynthia, who lost

her legs in her twenties, says, "It's easier if it happens

when you're young. You have to adjust." She's

seventy-one.

Easier -not easy. Mary Lou writes,

"T have lots of anxiety attacks, sleep ten hours

a night I am so tired from the medication.

Have a boring job and am not in love. . . poetry

is more or less beyond me. . . ." If you ask the baby

to say "hard way," she'll try it, looking you straight

in the eye. The hard way to talk is to start talking.

Falling again and again she learned to walk.

Mother, honestly. When you let them open your rib

cage

and take out your heart and fix it and put it back,

that was the hard way, wasn't it? What else is there?