'The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."

When I was a teenager (sometime after 13, before 18), our parents took us to the Stickley Museum at Crafstmen Farms. I stood in the front living room area in the house, near the stairs, where there was a fireplace. Over that fireplace was a copper awning over the front of it, with a message hammered up form the underside which read "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne". As I read it, something inside me said, "that is the truth". That quote has always been a point of reference for me, a starting point, a reminder, a source of focus that has resonated inside me. So much so that a decade later it's carved into my back in ink.
When I got a little older, I lived at Arcosanti. There, I was all at once severely isolated from the world and acutely exposed to the different daily reality structure that exists there. I am a very inwardly focused person, sometimes to a fault. Being in this environment forced and allowed me to examine how I was going to go about my life. This was going on in front of the backdrop of this place, where sustainability, craftsmanship, independence and creativity were the underpinnings of it's existence. Isolated from the drone of popular culture, mass media or the rest of the world for that matter, this tiny universe in the middle of the Arizona desert was the unique kiln in which my sense of self and point of view as a young adult was solidified. It was here that I learned the value of perfecting a process, any process. Casting bronze wind bells was what i did alot of, a craft I practiced and tried to perfect. But this concept can be extrapolated or applied to every facet of a life. Brushing teeth, putting on socks, how to organize a wallet, how many steps to the car. Carefully creating and managing all of life's procedures.
Hard work? Tedious? Satisfying? Mindful?
It was at this time that I realized I wanted to be the craftsman of my own life. If I can build a table, I can build a life, carefully considering each corner, every mortis and tenon.
There have been times in my life since then where my proverbial table has been flipped, it's not looked anything like what I've perceived to have wanted. Been rained on and tarnished. I keep building it, coming back to the the idea that I want to be the ever perfecting craftsman.
There are times I stray, mindlessly, unconsciously, away from my own focus, only to return every time. Returning every time with a renewed sense of truth, as clear as the day I read that Chaucer quote.
Now is one of those times.