Entry #289
February 15, 2026 — 3:45 AM
Overcast morning, light flattened, color gone out of the wood. I set the extension ladder on the east side where the soffit sags like a tired lip. The metal felt colder than the air. My gloves picked up a skin of damp off the rungs. Breath drafted back at me and fogged the side rails. It smelled of leaf mold and the mineral bite of wet concrete.
I had the pry bar hooked under the first soffit board, easing it up to see the nail pattern before I committed to a full pull. Old paint lifted in curled chips and got into my mouth. Nails came free with that thin, chirped groan they make when the threads let go of punky wood.
I shifted one boot up and put weight on it. The left ladder foot moved—a short, naked scrape across the padstone, no more than a half inch, but enough to change all the angles. My ribs met the rail. The pry bar levered out of the board and glanced my knuckles. The whole world seemed to hesitate while my other foot hunted for a rung that had briefly become air. I hugged in, got my knee around, and the ladder settled back by its own small weight. No drama. Quick in, quick out.
Blame list, immediate: the damp from the overcast, oxidized rubber on the feet, a dusting of grit I didn’t broom off, and me thinking about the next anchor instead of the rung I was on. The light was so even it made depth a guess. Easy to misjudge a rung by half your boot when there are no shadows to measure by.
I climbed down, checked the shoes. The rubber is glazed and nicked from other jobs, not ideal. I kicked them clean against the step and reset the footing on bare concrete instead of the mossed edge. I chocked the downhill side with a scrap of 2x, heel to heel, and tied a line off the middle rung to the porch post. Belt-and-suspenders after the belt came loose for a second. Then I went back up.
Under the board the rafter tails are softer than they look. A screwdriver goes in farther than it should with hardly any push. The fascia is cupped, nails red to their heads. One screw I put into the end grain turned like it was threading cork and then quit holding altogether. The board I opened had a pencil scrawl on the hidden side—just an E and a slashing line like someone was interrupted. I wiped at it, but the graphite had sunk in. Old hands, older marks. I let it be.
The pry bar slid once, too. I’d laid it across the top rung for a second, against my own rule, and it skittered down the rails, rung to rung, a slow clatter that made me feel the trajectory in my shin before it kissed the concrete and rang. Close to my boot. I told myself that’s on me, not the house. Tools go where you set them.
I finished the section I opened. I predrilled fresh holes higher where the wood still answers with a clear sound. I’ll put proper ladder stabilizers on tomorrow and swap the shoes. The house isn’t trying anything. It’s just old and wet and thin at its edges, and I was thinking ahead of my feet. Still: the moment the ladder moved is in my bones now, an outline around the day.
Warning is often indistinguishable from clumsiness until afterward.
— Thomas Hale