The artisan-poured cement countertop weighed a thousand pounds, one big slab waiting to be moved from the barn to it’s home in the kitchen. My son jumped in to help, as good friends do, and I rode along in the truck, windows down, expecting a 30-minute stop in the afternoon gloaming. It turned into four hours deep inside the problem: how to move the piece without breaking it, get it around tight corners without any peripheral damage to cabinets and floors and walls (or to humans). Three strapping young men, an elder man and two women (one me) working it with dollies, blocks, boards and a fair amount of geometry. Someone measured the doorframe. Someone found the angle that would clear the step. When the slab tipped, the young men took the weight into their backs and legs, and the older man knew exactly where to set a block so a lever would bite, the scamperers moved the boards. Respect and good humor traveled around the circle freely, and the slab moved inch by inch toward its new home.

My friend and teacher Patrick Connor uses a phrase I’ve loved for years: becoming transparent to the light. It’s gorgeous language and mystical enough that one can nod along to it for a long time, before inquiring into how it really works, or what it really means in practical terms.