A long, rambling introduction

I’ve never been very good at straight lines. Nor have I ever had any affinity with angles. My sense of balance has never been a strong point. And my eyes are hardly precision tools. In fact, precision of any kind tends to give me a headache.
So I don’t know why I decided to build my own house.
I’ve never been very good at small talk, either. Nor have I ever had any real affinity with animals (though my eyes refuse to see any animal as merely a roast on legs). And my sense of smell has always vaguely objected to the smell of stock playing on the range (though I’m partial to the smell of stock simmering on the range).
So I don’t know why I ended up living in Millers Flat.

The decision to build my own home was partly financial - I was cheap. Having no professional qualifications (unless a C in Grade 8 woodwork counts for something), no tools, no insurance, no experience and absolutely no idea how houses were built (although I have seen almost every episode of Home Improvement), meant my time was less valuable than that of a one-armed koala with gum disease. The closest I’d ever come to a building site was at the Acropolis, and the only building secret I’d ever heard was how to get on ACC.
When I considered the alternative employment options (apple-picking, apple-picking or, for a little change, apple-packing), I realised I’d have to work 24 hours a day in order to earn enough to employ a single builder for a standard 8-hour day ... unless I could find a builder willing to work for apples. Unfortunately, there were no qualified possums in the Yellow Pages (maybe it has something to do with the fact they can only work at night?), which left only one person willing to work for the pathetically low wage I was offering ... me.
There was also the question of a timetable. So many details had to be sorted out. So many unknowns to be made known, most of which were out of my hands, and therefore, unforeseeable. Which made it impossible to plan ahead with any confidence. Without a plan, it was impossible to involve anyone else in the project.
Well, maybe not impossible, but I didn’t want to be reliant on others’ schedules. I didn’t want a builder to be commuting between jobs and alternating coffee breaks. I wanted a builder (or a rough facsimile of one) at my beck and call. A builder who would work flat-out when I wanted him to, yet was just as comfortable standing in the rain all morning drinking coffee and trying to stack boards together to reconstruct the original trees. I wanted a builder who was not only available, but faithful. I didn’t want his mind filled with other houses, his attention distracted by fancy mouldings and sophisticated joinery. I wanted him to be committed to my house and only my house - body and soul ... which was possibly a tad unrealistic.
Another important consideration was personality. A house isn’t simply an agglomeration of piles and joists and bearers and other pagan bewilderments, it’s a reflection of the owner’s character. But more often than not, it’s a reflection of the builder’s character. If not the builder, the architect.
That wasn’t going to happen to my house. I wanted every nail to sing my praises, every cracked floorboard to creak my accomplishments, a house that fitted like a favourite pair of jeans. No smug perfection or elaborate monuments to the builder’s cleverness, just a simple house. A house with more flaws than floors, yet whose flaws melded magically to create a perfectly imprecise whole. So I needed a builder who understood all of these barely understandable elements on some deeper, primordial, intuitive level.
It was impossible to explain (in words or even diagrams) exactly what I envisaged - what I wanted. I only knew I’d recognise it when I saw it. Each board would have to be assessed individually and in juxtaposition with every other board. Personally. Carefully. So I needed a builder willing to agree with my every decision. A builder willing to alter plans at a moment’s notice without discussing mundane issues such as structural integrity or insurance risk. A builder who would be there, rain, hail or shine with a smile on his face. A builder I could joke with, sing with and swear at without risking offence. Most of all, a builder who would see my house through my eyes. And there aren’t too many of them around!
But the main reason for deciding to build myself... (Oh my prophetic soul! Is this a Freudian slip, or just bad grammar? Of course, at the time I was too focused on the house to think about myself, and I would have doubted any personal reconstruction was required anyway!) Where was I ...? Oh yes, the main reason for deciding to build my house by myself, was that it was something I felt I wanted to do. (Of course I never intended to really build it by myself. It was supposed to be a joint effort. My wife, Marion, and I were going to build our home, together. But that was just one of the many developments along the way ...)
It had been a kind of secret ambition ever since fourth grade geography when Mister Kennedy told us our only needs were food, water, clothing and shelter. Everything else were mere wants ... no matter how much we needed them. And I believed him with the wide-eyed zeal of a new convert. After all, Mister Kennedy wouldn’t lie. Hadn’t he guided the moon landing a few years earlier, nodding his approval at Neil Armstrong’s every step as though encouraging a gifted pupil? Hadn’t he explained to me the difference between a sprain and a break after I’d hobbled from the rugby field, left foot throbbing with indignation at the front rower’s weighty clumsiness? Didn’t he know everything?
From that moment, I began to understand life could be simple. Life should be simple. We didn’t need abundance, we needed quality. Good food, clean water, sturdy clothes ... and a comfortable, warm, dry home. Not that I could have put it in so many words, or that I really thought about it in the strictest sense, but I felt something fundamental shift inside me. A burden lifted from my shoulders (well, as much a burden as any ten-year-old carried), buoyed by the realisation that life could never be too difficult, because all we really needed was four things. Four things. To make it easier, they were all things which grew in the soil or fell from the sky! How easy!
Of course, over the next ten years everyone seemed determined to dispel such foolish ‘myths’ and to discredit simplicity itself. “Life,” the Prime Minister proclaimed, “wasn’t meant to be easy,” and the whole country seemed anxious to believe him. A simple life was not only undesirable, but unattainable, because it was simply impossible for anyone to directly satisfy any of their needs.
You can’t produce your own food because - it’s just not possible; you’re not a farmer; it’ll get eaten by bugs; it’s too cold here (tomatoes don’t grow outside in winter); it’s too hot here (the chokos will strangle everything); it won’t have any taste without those chemicals; you can’t eat anything natural if it doesn’t look artificial ....
You can’t collect your own water because - it’s just not possible; that’s the council’s job; it won’t be fit to drink without chlorine/fluoride/ bleach/ultraviolet treatment; you’ll get malaria/gardia/cholera; the possums will just love to shit in your tank; it’ll be full of dust and birdshit; it just won’t taste like water’s supposed to taste ...
You can’t make your own clothes because - it’s just not possible; what are shops for?; the economy will collapse; they won’t be in fashion; they’ll look like hand-me-downs; I’d be too embarrassed to walk down the streets with you; they won’t have a label; you won’t know what size you are; everyone will think you’ve gone mad/you’re broke/you’re on your way to a fancy dress party/you’re unemployed/you just don’t care what you look like ...
You certainly can’t build your own house because - it’s just not possible; you don’t have any qualifications; you need special tools; it’s a trade and you’re not a tradesman; what do you have against builders anyway?; it’ll collapse; it’ll leak; it’s not like using Lego, you know; the roof will blow away in the first wind; it won’t look like a proper house ...
A thousand reasons. It wasn’t the individual’s responsibility, it was the state’s duty, the companies’ raison d’etre, the farmers’ vocation. Society’s sole reason for existence was to provide me with my every need! My duty was to find a job which paid lots of money so I could buy not only everything I needed, but a thousand more things absolutely essential to a normal, happy life. So many wonderful, shiny things my life couldn’t be complete without.
But, somehow, I never quite forgot about the basics.
I etched my first vege garden out of the heavy clay in a grassless corner of my father’s backyard while still at school. Not an ideal site for a garden - the soil denuded by the thirsty rubber tree which also conspired to block all but the first feeble shafts of daylight - but it was the only area not required for the activities of the local species of familia suburbialis. The entire lawn was deemed inviolate, booked as it was for such noteworthy events as summer evening cricket or kicking-a-football-against-the-fence (a perennial favourite), or for simply being a lawn. The sandy corner under the bleeding gum was reserved in perpetuity for biennial spontaneous barbecues and mosquito fencing tournaments, while the lemon tree corner was being slowly consumed by the ravages of the sacred lawnclipping hill - its musty lava flows enveloping fallen branches and bicycle wheels as it bulged beneath each Sunday morning offering. After the first rain, my garden resembled a little vegetable Venice, with the water-filled paths lapping against the rows of confused seedlings. So I scavenged some timber and raised the beds above the high water mark, and my plants responded, filling the summer with warm, tangy tomatoes and cool, sun-filled melons.
I began to learn the language of water. I snatched bubbling handfuls from roaring shafts of whiteness. I kissed myself in crystal pools, tasting the coldness. I threw my head back and captured a single droplet, its skin still warm from its journey through the sunshine. And always my tongue was thirsty with questions.
I never quite got around to making clothes.
And always, at the back of my mind, was the thought of building my own house. Not that I’d ever lain awake contemplating strategic toilet placements or ruminating over wallpaper patterns, and it certainly never grew to my-life-won’t-be-complete-without-it proportions. In fact, it was never so much an ambition, as something I’d like to do if the situation presented itself. And, coincidentally, the situation did present itself.
Of course I knew there would be drawbacks. Employing an infamously unskilled carpentric virgin was certainly fraught with risk, but there was also the undoubted excitement. As long as I remained realistic, the risk could be minimised. As long as I remained objective, I wouldn’t exceed the point of no return. As long as I was willing to accept that my workpersonship would probably fall below contemporary professional standards (though I was confident of achieving at least a late-Crustacean level of building proficiency ... not that I’d put it in writing!), and acknowledged that the party of the first part (being me) accepted no liability and retained the right to abandon aforementioned project at any time ad hoc ipso facto contrariwise ad nauseam to the party of the second part (being myself), then we had a deal. I ran the details of the contract past my honorary solicitor (of course I have no professional qualifications, but my father was a policeman) and I agreed it was a bargain. I was hired!
Of course I had my doubts, but I was confident.
It would be a huge challenge, but all obstacles could be overcome, and everything would, somehow, fall into place.
In the end though, things didn’t so much fall into place as fall apart. And though it certainly was a challenge, it wasn’t as challenging as re-building my life in the aftermath.
And my decision to live in Millers Flat? Well, there really wasn’t any decision involved. It sort of just happened ...