7:57 p.m. - Monday, Feb. 11, 2002
Ms Leslie reflects on her tool(s)
I spent the day moving the last of my things.. all tools.. that I had kept at Ann's house all this time. It was very strange, like picking through the bones of someone dead. As I carried my saws and wrenches, drills and other power tools, I recognized them and thought of how I had used them for various jobs. I wondered why I am keeping them. Why am I renting storage for them? Will I ever use them again? WIll I ever want to?
I wondered if I was such a bad man. Why was I so unhappy as a guy? And if I was so unhappy, why do I cling to these symbols of manhood. And then I realized that each time I have abandoned a life; leaving everything behind, the first things.., the only things I have bought were tools. I always started accumulating tools right away. The reason that bubbled out of me was startling: I've always used tools as a way to make up for the inadequate tool I was born with. I used to have quite a few guns. They filled the same purpose.
I looked at my tools, thinking back on how it was to be a man. It occured to me that I had never done a great deal with these tools anyway. I had a habit of aquiring junk, thinking I would fix it up. An old wooden fishing boat, gutted, burned and full of holes from shotguns. Here in MS, an old camping trailer, obsolete and trashed. I bought these things and then ignored them. I really had no interest in them, but bought them because that's what men do.
So now I will keep thes tools a while longer. I'll pay storage fees to keep them until I am quite sure I'll never need them again. And then, just like all the other tools I've ever had, I'll abandon them. This will be the last time. I won't need to buy tools to prove I am a man anymore. It's time to accept that I am not, never was and never will be a man.
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