Many years ago an old farmer, Bill Ritchie, taught me how to refinish furniture. There are a few tricks to this. First he said, “don’t bother with something that is painted; too much work.” Next he showed me his stash of old tooth-brushes: “These are what you need to get to the cracks and crevasses.” He showed me the type of steel wool that works best, but then he said, “the real trick is ventilation. The stripper will burn out your brain if you breathe too much of this stuff.”
In the years that followed I have refinished a few pieces. Kathy has a mahogany dresser from the 1930s whose grain is clear and vibrant now that the old varnish is removed. Don’t fear if there is a voice welling up in you wanting to say, “you took off the patina.” Patina is when a piece of antique furniture has great value if you leave it as it was made. We own furniture that has old varnish which can be removed without lowering the value.
For the last few years, I have enjoyed a large wooden desk, the type built to last and weighing enough to challenge any desire to rearrange furniture in a room. The desk was the daily workstation of a lovely friend, Ann Tinsley. When she died, it came to me. Through its years of usage, as a desk often does, watermarks had been left here and there. A glass of water with ice in it leaves a very milky impression on varnish if left unattended. My hope was to remove the old varnish and refinish the desktop with polyurethane which doesn’t absorb water.
This last weekend I took the desk top out to the garage, opened all the doors, and applied the powerful sludge that dissolves the old varnish. Then I cleaned it again and again using the techniques Bill Ritchie taught me so long ago. Yet, as I worked I kept thinking of the varnish and its watermarks as memories. The marks and old varnish could no longer be seen by others, but I could see them. I remembered them.
Here is a poem that came to me as I recovered from the fumes of the varnish stripper. What I heard as I wrote it was the way grace removes our faults and failures, but we still see them in ourselves. Even when others can’t see them, the memories remain.
Refinishing
I stripped the top of an old desk, removing
the varnish applied a century ago to keep
the grain clear and free from damage,
the varnish that always succumbs to water
from glasses left too long, with ice
beading the base to leave a ghostly trace.
I don’t like these traces of beer and coffee,
wine and whiskey in highball glasses;
I don’t want them beside me each day
so I applied the pink sludge burning through
my brain and causing my eyes to ache
and dissolving memories I want to conceal.
The traces are gone but my memories remain;
I can see them, lingering and mildly unimpressed.
