WEEK    JOB: FRAMER

LOCATION: TROIS-PISTOLES, QUEBEC

GROWING UP I wasn’t a skilled handyman, but I liked to construct things. Whether it was a precarious rope swing in the backyard or an elaborate Kinder Surprise egg, at the end of the day it felt like I’d accomplished something. I could say, “I did that.”

Back in Trois-Pistoles working with Tigs at his installation company (Portes et Fenêtres Bernier), I realized how many jobs involve constructing the ordinary items that we use every day. I attached a mesh screen to a window frame and thought, There’s a company that simply makes mesh screens. That’s probably all they do, mesh screens. Where someone finds the inspiration to start a business that specializes in mesh screening, I’m not sure. Perhaps the same place one finds the inspiration to produce a monthly catalogue that sells bull semen.

It had been a quiet week at the shop. Tigs took it easy on me, which meant that I got to spend more time with Danna. Over the past week when I wasn’t at work and she wasn’t at school, we were together.

“I love how positive you are, and just your whole view of the world,” I said as we walked through town one evening.

“Thanks!” she said, smiling. “I say that I’m in my oyster phase.”

“Oyster phase?”

“Yeah. The world’s my oyster.”

She explained that a few years earlier her parents had divorced and how the event impacted her. All of a sudden, everything that she was brought up to know—her family, her home—all seemed false.

“I didn’t understand how my entire world could crumble so quickly,” she said. “I became very resentful, and kinda started spiraling downhill. Until, after a couple of years, I hit rock bottom.”

“What turned it around?” I asked.

She reflected on the thought, then answered. “I just remember looking at myself in the mirror one morning, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, is this who you want to be?’ It was weird. I had this, like, eureka moment and suddenly realized that the world didn’t revolve around me. That I needed to stop blaming everyone else for my problems and take responsibility for my own life.”

She smiled. “And so now, oyster phase it is.”

By the end of the week, I was confident that Danna had had her wow moment too.

How could she not? We jumped in puddles, shared ice cream cones and sunsets and life stories, and stargazed while the entire town slept silently.

A pebble tossed at the window signaled the commencement of our late-night rendezvous, while the birds, our voice of reason, chirped every morning to inform us that it was time to say good night. The beautiful church in the center of town, the calm streets, old buildings, and other students were merely the backdrop to our young romantic cliché.

It was incredible how fast things moved. We were both hesitant to embrace our feelings. One moment we expressed how much we liked each other, so grateful to have met, excited about what the future held, and the next moment we’d doubt everything. “We don’t even know each other.” “It doesn’t make sense.” “We shouldn’t be feeling this way.”

Then we would fall even further.