Skinny arms meet Big Rock

Rock work. Frustrating. Slow. Hot. I stand around and feel inept most of the time, wander around slowly, stare at a rock, look at the rock bar in my hands, and stand caught in the feeling that I am doing this all wrong. Suggestions swirl in my head. Back straight. Butt down. Pull don't push. Watch your hands. Watch your wrists. Watch your feet.

I position myself, my middle finger grasping the rock through the hole in my glove. I look forward, push up with my legs, push out with my arms. Sometimes, the rock moves. Sometimes, it doesn't budge. Damn it all to hell. I feel like such a girl.

Between the four of us, we have pushed and rolled and slid a collection of smallish-medium to mediumish-medium rocks to the spot above the gully we are working in. The larger boulders stay where they are. We stare at the rocks, at their sides and bottoms. We slide them into place. We roll them back out. We bash them with single jacks and double jacks and watch them chip or fissure or just break.

Rocks are such slow, zen-like creatures. They follow gravity more than anything. Other forces push and nag them- wind, water, human hands, but in the end, it is gravity that they rest in. They are content not to move, to sit in meditation as the rain falls and the sun beats down and the flowers take root in and around them. Eventually, they may crumble into sand and be one. Granite Nirvana.

And here we are, breaking their peaceful concentration, forcing the silent, solitary, heavy monks into close military formation like the terra cotta soldiers of China. Criticizing their imperfections, their unsmooth sides, their lack of symmetry, their rockness. Stoically, they wait out our game, wait to be placed and chipped and forced together and finally left alone. At least, until the water comes again.

There must be an art to this, a way to befriend and appreciate the rock, to see it in the way a Taoist butcher sees a leg joint, to not waste so much effort, to get the rock on our side so that it cooperates willingly and rests close to its new siblings with contentment.

So now the question arises- how do you make a rock happy?