Michaels

from Paris Review interview (184, Spring 2008)

Interviewer

I notice this place is full of old tools. What about them appeals to you?

Michaels

Years ago, I bought a scythe in New England, and I came home with it to my parents’. The minute I walked in the door, my father said, What did you spend money on a piece of junk like that for? He took it away from me and began to swing it around in the air, saying, Why would you want something this silly? This is a barley scythe, a left-handed barley scythe. I used one like this as a child in Poland. Why would you be interested in such a thing? How much did you spend? Ten dollars, fifteen dollars? Whatever it was, it was too much. This is a left-handed barley scythe that was handmade. I used on just like this as a child.

There was an extraordinary confusion in his excitement. He was obviously very taken with the scythe, but trivializing it every minute. How I had wasted money. What absurd preciosity I had succumbed to. And yet, what I brought home to him was his childhood.