Hours and days of grinding labor culminate in a finished structure but somehow it’s the intermissions in the process that are remembered. Sharing a joke with another tradesperson on the worksite, scrambling over the rock piles to take mental inventory of potential through stones, pinpointing the location of a hawk high overhead by the sound of its cry, noting the shifts of cloud-shadow pattern on the broad flank of Mount Mansfield; these are the cracks of light that shine through the monolith of physical exertion that is dry stone walling.

Work is expected to happen (it’s what wallers are paid for, after all), while intermissions within the work are where the unexpected happen; similar to the way that sleep is inhabited by dreams. The dry stone walls stitched together to support raised plateaus outside a cabin in Underhill, Vermont were my reason to be there. Their creation fixed me to a place I’d not otherwise have experienced. While the job took my energy and time, it gave me moments to pause, and they’re what I took away with me after the last stone was laid. We remember the dream more than the slumber.

Despite working alone most days, there’s a surprising number of people involved in bringing a project to completion. Thanks go to client Tim and family, to excavators John and Alex, to barn builder Tom, and to Kevin, Ted and Heath for trucking and stone supply. Sam set the professional tone of the worksite before I got started by creating three fine stepways, and Jamie and Willie joined in on the last days of walling.