Some years ago I put you on a shelf unfinished…imperfect. Not a complete object but a monument to my inability to manage my time. Over those years you have haunted me. High on the wall above the other boats you sat patiently, waiting for me to give you the attention that you deserve.

It is not your fault, but mine, that you lay idle, incomplete all this time. I have started and completed other projects since placing you up there on that wall, your lofty resting place. I have done many things in that workshop and on you looked without sound or remark of any kind. Many times I have looked at you with some longing, some base urge to touch you or to make room on the boat horses for you and take you down but I passed you by each time, and shook my head. You were imperfect, I told myself. You were not something that I wanted to tackle right now, but someday, I would say, someday.

You were not perfect but neither was I. In my haste to finish you many years ago I made mistakes. In my efforts to make you complete I failed, or foundered, and I made you imperfect. These imperfections were not terrible, not insurmountable, but, nonetheless, I hated you for them. You did not ask me to pour on epoxy so thick that it ran in streaks, creating a mess that would harden and mean even more sanding when, god knows, there is enough sanding that must be done already. You did not ask me to be finished, no, you just sat patiently on the horses letting me work at whatever pace I chose and, if I decided to just look at you, cocktail in hand, you glistening in the evening sun, you were perfectly happy. You were so beautiful. I was the one who was in a hurry. I was the one who wanted you to be finished, to be complete. In my efforts to make you complete I made mistakes that frustrated me, and for that I blamed you, and when I found myself disgusted at what you had become, even though you were only lying prostrate before me with all the faith in my hands that any craftsman could ask for, I blamed you. Then I put you up on the wall and forgot about you…no, forgot is the wrong word, I ignored you. I wanted to forget about you. I wanted to stop thinking about you, but I couldn’t. I felt haunted by your presence there, perched high above the other boats, teasing me, I thought, with a desire for completion that drove me crazy at times but, somehow never compelled me to take you down and finish the work that I started; to truly complete you, and, somehow, complete myself in the process.

I think you knew this. I think you understood that the timing was not right. I think you understood that I needed to leave and come back to you in order for me to be able to put in the work that was needed in order to make you perfect. You were fine with the waiting. You were always patient, unlike me, through the years of abject forgetfulness. You were the one who waited. You were the one who lay passive under my hand while I rushed, while I faltered. You were the one with all the strength. For all of that I put you away. Unfinished. Imperfect.

You waited all this time. You hung on that wall without any expectation that I might one day take you down, dust you off, and make you whole, for whole you have never been.

Today I cleaned out the workshop. Today I put other things away. Today I made preparations to take you down, and then, when there was plenty of room to work on you, I carefully slipped you from your high resting place and set you, gently, on the boat horses. I ran my aging hands over your imperfections…and your perfections. I realized that your imperfections were all of my own making. I also realized that you are closer to perfect than I remembered. I saw the fair curves, the deep wood grain, the warm character just yearning to show through layers of varnish yet to be applied. You looked magnificent.

I am sorry for ignoring you. I lament that I was not mature enough to see that you just wanted to be complete, to be whole and, in trying to make you whole I failed. I am sorry for placing you on that shelf. I never should have left you there. I am sorry.

Today I sanded. Today I toiled. Today I worked. You lay there with your usual patience, letting me run my fingers along your lines, and correcting those lines, but only where it was necessary. You sat on the boat horses without judgment, without scorn. You lay there just content that I would take time and be patient…the way that you are patient. I worked carefully, slowly. I want this time to be better, closer to perfection, than the last time, when I couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing. At the end of the day you sat, gleaming, in the evening sun after the first coat of finish was applied and tipped off. I stood in wonder at your beauty. I felt so lucky to be there, watching the changing light of autumn paint your graceful lines, your warm wood grain. I stood, transfixed, by your beauty and wondered why I would ever put you up on a shelf.

I am sorry. Let me make it up to you. You have given me more than you could possibly know, perhaps by waiting, by being so patient. I will make you complete. I will make you as close to perfect as possible. I will work hard to reward you for your patience. I will perform at my best, if you will have me. I will make you move like liquid glass through the water. I will make the sun gleam off of your deck as if you were the reason that the sun rose in the morning, just to have the privilege of his light so warmly reflected. You have waited for my attention for too long, and for that I am grateful. I will do my best to make you complete.

Forgive me.