To date, I calculate I have produced approximately 1,738,893 wood chips; conservatively. My estimate may be quite conservative considering the two years I spent carving Totem poles.
After a while one chip looks pretty much like the last one and the one before that. Sure there are big chips and teeny-weeny chips and every size in between. Yet, when they are all swept up into a pile, I have to admit I couldn’t tell you which chip came from what part of the carving.
Once in a while I may find a stray woodchip and wonder which carving it came from; and how it got into my underwear. But most of the time I really don’t give it much thought anymore. Years of whittling have worn the edges off the excitement of seeing a new chip being born.
You may think I am talking foolishness; where is the glory in making a woodchip?
In truth, I hadn’t given it much thought for many, many years; I have been focused on the carvings, not the chips that were falling.
Then a strange and wonderful thing happened; my five year old granddaughter asked if she could carve with me. Of course, I couldn’t refuse her; so holding her tiny hand in mine we pushed the gouge through the wood.
I didn’t even see it coming; a little ember somewhere deep inside me burst into flames again.
There it was; smooth and shiny, curled and cracked; my grand daughter’s first chip. Her excitement was unrestrained as she picked it up and ran through the house showing her Mom, Dad, and Grandma.
I sat there; looking down at my neglected chips on the floor.
