This morning I went into my dad's woodshop with him, which is an experience few and far between in the past years of my preteen era onward. As a young girl I often (and most likely daily) visited Dad in his shop, usually making the 800-foot trek armed with donuts and coffee for his "mid-morning snack". I would let myself in amidst the buzzing of a machine or despite the saturation of furniture stain smell and I would sit on the floor with a hammer and nails and scrapwood. Dad and I would either talk or not talk at all and we'd sit there in his shop for minutes, perhaps an hour. He'd tell me about what he was working on and eat the food I brought and then I'd leave and walk back to the house.

I did that so often that the mere sight of woodchips, the singular sound of a saw, or the overwhelming smell of lacquer immediately reminds me of my father. I find a part of home in these things, and walking down the street or listening from my bedroom window to construction outside are gifts of memory to me that I greedily seize whenever I can.

This morning I walked into Dad's shop with him. It is a new shop, only about four years old, but it is nonetheless hopelessly dusty inside with mounds of woodshavings, piles of scrapwood, and papers of draftwork at his drafting table. I look around and breathe in deeply as he shows me the carvings for a bedpost, a stand-up bench for a judge. The half-done work is beautiful already and I am overwhelmed at the artistry my dad exudes. I smile at the dust-ridden rolodex that I remember from years ago. I know he still sifts through it despite the decrepit state.

I look at the machines, with their films of grime on them. As a girl I wrote notes to Dad in that dust. "I love you" or "Good job, Dad!".

I look around the room at there, balanced on a top rung of the wall high above everything else is the sticker my dad's had in his shop for as long as I can remember. White writing set against a deep blue says, "My boss is a Jewish carpenter."

So much has changed in this life. And so much remains constant.