Steady Hands

If you ever buy a school bag at the McGill bookstore, they will advertise free repairs on it for its lifetime. As my school bag had had its arm ripped from its shoulder last semester, I decided to take them up on their offer. I then discovered that this free repair was in fact a couple of weeks without the bag, while I myself mail it to the company. There was, however, a note on the bottom of the statement that read, "For our montreal customers, come to us directly and we'll do it on the spot. Take the 165 north to..." well it was a distance, but anything to save a trip to the post office. Armed with my broken bag, a copy of Ulysses, and a monthly bus pass well-haggled from the cutest of physics students, I set off to Ecogold's factory.

The 165 goes the distance, all the way past the bakeries and Maisons de la Presse of Cote-des-Neiges, past a Canadian Tire in the core of a shopping center you don't know exists, and through some light residential to the Mont-Royal train station. I got off at rue Goyer, on one of the most pleasant of spring days. It was a thursday afternoon, maybe 2 PM. The regulars were all at work; the workers were outside working. There were still the very old, efficaciously reserving their spots on the line at the bus stop, and there were the very young who were all but carefully monitored by their mothers who never ever notice me.

Stately, I leave the cote-des-neiges bustle and head into some back streets littered with low-rise houses. Chain-linked fences arbitrarily dotted the scenery, belonging to the more weary residents. It was a lower-middle class neighborhood, but overall I could sense the effort that the locals put into their houses. Just to my north I found the street where Ecogold supposedly resides. This street immediately reminded me of Railroad avenue on Long Island (that's where you find the sock factory). At night it's desolate. During the day you can sense activity, based on the occasional passing van or hearing accentless chatter through a dusty window tilted open. I could not escape the feeling that nine out of ten of these factories were abandoned, and those who remained felt their absense.

I chose one building out of ten based on the address. No signs anywhere, no buzzer to get in, no people nor birds watching me choose. I climbed up three sets of stairs and pushed through a door with no latch. Make one last corner and finally I spied past two sets of fire doors Ecogold's black and white logo, poster size at the end of the hall. I made my way there and found a little buzzer beside a door. I pressed it and a minute later a door behind me was opened by a little man. He greeted me and invited me into the sewing room. His French was gentle but his English was gentler. There were enough machines to handle a working force of fifty, but I found only two others in the room, who were quite content not to stir at my presence. I showed him my bag's dislocated shoulder and he brought me over to his machine.

I knew I could relax on that metal stool and watch him. His thick, calloused fingertips carefully removed the bobin of red thread from inside the machine. He searched his drawer and withdrew a bobin already prepared with black thread and loaded it. He then found the same black thread on a spool and loaded it on the top of the machine, steadily drawing the end around a wheel and finally through the needle. I watched him position himself to use the petal. After so much preparation, he finished fixing my bag within a few moments, his blue eyes monitoring his steady hands from up high.

While I probably could have stayed there in a my own style of meditation, I knew it was time to leave. I thanked him and made my way back to the bus stop. I remembered that I used to do physical work and while I didn't enjoy it at the time, I missed it the instant I stopped. I think maybe people are designed to enjoy a repetitious frame of mind. A meditation of the hands.