Brick by Brick

"Destruction before creation."
~Joseph Campbell

Just over a year ago, we bought a hundred year old house in Yale. It needs major renovations which may take us 2 to 3 years.

For the last two weekends I've been working on dismantling the chimney and fire place one brick at a time. We hope to use the bricks somewhere later, possibly as the floor of a court yard.

While wielding my hammer and breathing in dust, my mind was wandering. At first I was thinking about stashed gold just waiting to be found behind the next brick. This is Yale after all. As I got closer to the floor in my demolition I realized that it was unlikely that I would be rich by the time I was finished this particular project.

Next, my thoughts went to the families before and how this fire place was the means to their winter warmth. I thought of the craftsmanship and how much work it must have been to build, how satisfying not only the completion but the whole process must have been. I wonder what thoughts went through the bricklayer's and/or stone mason's head as he was building.

The fact that we are trying to keep what we can of the original structure and reuse as much of the material as we can helps me in this destruction phase. "This Old House" is truly a reclaimation and restoration project and I'm loving it.
And as far as I can tell, the ghosts are appeased as well.