My wife is the most unusual blend of artist, pioneer woman, handywoman, and user of power tools that I wouldn’t dare to pick up, let alone try to use.

I remember when I tried to buy an ax at the hardware store to chop wood, and the clerk gave me the eye and asked: “does your wife know you are buying this?”

I huffed and puffed and demanded that he sell it to me, and a week later Maria told me to bring it back.

I nearly chopped my foot off and managed to chop one piece of wood. That wasn’t pretty.

Our pasture gate has been tilting in the rains and was getting difficult to open.

Maria walked sternly into my study this afternoon, interrupted my deep contemplations,  and said: “we need to get a bigger power drill!” I was prepared to call a carpenter to come and build a new fence, my Willa Cather wife scoffed at this idea and said she would do it herself.

Off we went to the hardware store, and as an Old “Luftmensch” with heart disease and diabetes, I was told to sit in the car and play with my iPhone. A few minutes later, my wife came marching out of the hardware store with an awesome power tool of some kind.

She was delighted with the new drill. Now, she said, happily, I can rebuild the doors on the porch.

The artist persona disappeared, so did the spiritual wanderer of the woods or maker of Goddess wall hangings.

There are many different Maria’s; I am never sure which one will startle me by suddenly appearing.

Maria got to work; I could tell because I could hear the muttering and cursing about how she was going to move this post or that one, remove the gate, build a new fence post to hold, unscrew everything, and put it back to together again.

I was allowed to hold the fence, which I did, but not allowed to touch the drill.

Like the ax, it was understood that this would be a dangerous thing.

I grasped nothing about what she was doing with all that banging and drilling and hopping up and down.

Amidst much grunting and squawking and shouting at me to stand there, get here, hold up the fence, and with her new $149 drill and sledgehammer and drills and bits, she rebuilt the post and the fixtures that held the gate in place.

There were a few miscalculations and blown measurements, but she plowed through those and started over.

And there it was, a new gate. I retreated to my piece pondering truth and responsibility, and I said it looks like you married a “luftmensch!”

She didn’t remember the word, but she laughed pretty hard when I defined it for her.

At one point during the restoration, she pointed the drill my way and beamed and said: “This is one hell of a drill!” and I fell in love all over again.

“Luftmensch” is a Yiddish word, my grandmother pummeled my grandfather with it quite often, he was often to be found in the neighborhood synagogue chanting and praying while she slaved in their Mom and Pop store across the street.

Jacob Cohen was rebuked for this distraction regularly, but it didn’t seem to faze him or change his behavior. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My grandfather practically invented Radical Acceptance.

According to Merriam-Webster, a “Luftmensch” is an “impractical contemplative person having no definite business or income.” The term comes from a German word meaning “air,” as in living off the air. It makes me squirm a bit, but I have to admit I like it.

In the Yiddish culture in Kiev (now Kyiv) where my grandmother was born, the woman slaved all day to find food, and the men – my grandfather – studied the Talmud and the Torah for much of the day and went home for dinner.

In a way, they lived off the “air.”

They didn’t build things.

I thought of this and smiled while my remarkable wife took a metal fence apart and used her new drill to rebuild the gate and the posts around it while I went inside to write about the moral issues spawned by the coronavirus.

For an hour, our bright red new drill whined and hummed, resting when Maria picked up her sledgehammer and banged some metal into shape.

“Hold the gate, please,” she said two or three times, and I think I did well with that.

I thought of my grandfather, who used to wink at me and turn off his hearing aid while my grandmother scolded him.

They say that “Luftmensch” was first introduced to English prose in 1907, when Israel Zangwill wrote, “The word ‘Luftmensch’ flew into Barstein’s mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man…He was an air-man, floating on facile wings.”

My grandfather was a shy and quiet man, happiest when studying his religious texts. I don’t ever remember him talking to me directly; he would give me a silver dollar now and then. I wasn’t sure he knew my name.

My grandmother now that I think about it was a bit like Maria.

She was creative, honest, nurturing, and tough as a donkey’s hoof. She loved me very much and in many ways, saved me.

She wasn’t shy about expressing herself; she lived in a patriarchal culture, the women ran everything because their husbands were off all day thinking great thoughts, arguing with one another,  living off the air.

When she met my grandfather, she spit on him because he was a redhead. Her father cautioned her to be more polite, “don’t spit in the well,” legend has him, “you might have to drink from it.” And so she did.

But she never forgave him for being a redhead for  reasons not entirely clear. She had no respect for redheads, I think she thought it was an Irish affectation.

Like me, my grandfather would have fallen over in a dead swoon if anybody asked him to take a gate apart and repair it, or go out and buy power drill and be thrilled to have it.

And he would have gone into shock if his wife or any other woman was seen sitting on the ground with a power drill, a sledgehammer and plastic containers full of screws,  and batters and drill bits, and cursing.

I was allowed to help Maria in this project for a few minutes – someone had to hold the gate up – I was mesmerized by how happy and engaged Maria was, pausing to fix mistakes, measuring things by eye, smiling and laughing, frowning and shouting,  judging distances and shouting some expletives from time to time.

This was a happy Maria.

Times changed grandpa, and for the better.  I guess the “Luftmensch” gene runs in the family.

Indeed, grandpa,  gentile women can’t cook or clean houses well.

Still, they can do so much more: re-charge dead car batteries,  saw dead limbs off of trees,  build clotheslines, paint walls and ceilings, re-design bathrooms,  repair door hinges, climb up on rooftops to fix slate tiles and rebuild an aluminum fence and the fence post that holds it up.

As for me, I retreated to my study with Zinnia and resumed my contemplations. I absolutely have a “Luftmensch” dog, she is very happy snoring at my feet, deep in contemplation.

I am proud to be the “air-man,” floating on facile wings. I love that description.