Lessons from a Pocket Knife

I had the great pleasure of escaping to the woods for a few days with my son this week. It’s a beautiful old cabin nestled between the base of a tree-covered mountain and a deep isolated lake. Before heading out, we stopped at Canadian Tire and picked up his first pocket knife. Its a stainless steel blade, with a wooden handle and brass fittings. It only cost a few dollars, but, if he cares for it, it could very well last him a lifetime.

I showed him how to hold it, how to sharpen it, how to care for it. Then I stepped back and watched, in wonder, as he practiced what he learned and over the course of a few hours made the tool his own.  He seems to understand this better than most. It’s intuitive to him, beyond words, and I realized he was deliberately creating a relationship with this new artifact in his life.

I watched as the tool became a part of him, and he became a part of it. In time, he will develop callouses on his fingers where he grasps the handle. In time, the wood and brass of the handle will become worn where his fingers have pressed against it. The blade will gradually become more narrow, as its edge is pressed against the wood he carves, and slowly eroded from sharpening it on stones. The knife will become familiar to his hands, a silent friend laden with memories of august days sitting next to a lake. It will become an artifact of his life, treasured perhaps one day by his own children and grandchildren.

I don’t own a lot of things, but I used to. Yet, regardless of how many possession I’ve had, it is always the most simple tools that hold the most importance to me: a pocket knife, a canoe, an oar, a fishing pole, a hand axe, a well-crafted hammer, a favourite pen, pencil and notebook, favourite coffee mug… and that’s really about it. I think, however, for me, it was a long tangled journey to discover the importance of such simple artifacts in one’s life, compared to the complicated, forgettable toys we seem to so-easily acquire.

My son already seems to understand these things in a way I was unable to until very recently in life. The pleasure and care he takes in something as simple as a pocket knife, or an old hand-axe, or a fishing pole, is inspiring to me.  It’s a parent’s role to teach a child many things, and I was able to teach him many things in the past few days. But through the course of the past few days, I think I learned much more from him. Watching his relationship with the frogs and fish he caught and then released back into the water, his relationship with the rocks, the trees, the water and even the insects was a lesson in naturism I will not soon forget… and of course the care and importance he placed in his knew pocket knife. I hope he always remembers through the years to come, how his father’s heart is folded into this particular pocket knife as well.

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