microchamfers

Okay, so. At the very end of carving a spoon, one of the last things you do is cut microchamfers. These tiny little slivers of wood, knocking off a sharp corner, can be fine to the point of ridiculousness.

Now, you may be all about facets. You may be all about surface. You may be all about rustic and you may be all about perfection. Doesn't matter. Microchamfers makes all of these situations better. A microchamfer around the inner rim of the spoon bowl? Crucial. Want a rounded corner? Put two microchamfers on either side of a facet.

Microchamfers are a finishing element, the sprinkle of salt at the end of cooking a dish, the satisfying ending to the movie, the encore at the concert. Microchamfers separate a great spoon from a good one. And as such, they carry parallels to everything in our lives. Because often it's the little touches that separate something great from something good in life, whether it's a thing or an experience. The contrasting thread at the toe of your sock. The extra water pressure in a shower. A real smile from the person helping you when you reach the front of a long line. The smell of gasoline when you're filling the tank on a warm day on the first road trip of summer. Microchamfers.

Microchamfers might seem like they are about skill, but really they are more about attention. They are not hard to pull off: the crisp rustle of fresh sheets on the bed. The twist of lemon on the fish. Actually signing your name at the bottom of a message. Microchamfers.

Sometimes I'm tempted to leave out the microchamfers, because I'm being snookered by the sharp lines of an unadorned facet, or because I think it's not worth the effort. But in the end, how something makes you feel is always more important than how something looks. The relationship that looks wrong on paper but feels just right. The career that you want vs. the one that has the most status. What you say to someone when absolutely no one is watching. Microchamfers.