There’s a term in carpentry that I like, for some reason it’s been on my mind for a while: sistering. When a roof beam is having trouble doing its job and needs an extra bit of help, the idea is to aid the struggling beam with an accompanying one that sits alongside it, helping carry the weight. The analogy is obvious, really, in the term ‘sistering the beam.’

This has been on my mind lately as I’ve been turning my shed into something else and adding a floor on top of the beams. One beam has been directly under a hole in the slate roof for, perhaps, decades, definitely since long before I bought the house. The beam is perhaps one third rotted through but it’s still hanging there. I decided that instead of trying to replacing it, I would ‘sister’ it.

While figuring this out and propping up the beam last week ahead of putting floorboards on it next week, by word association I was reminding of the Kris Kristofferson song ‘Sister Sinéad’ and today with the passing of Kris Kristofferson I’m connecting the dots, in a disconnected way.

Way back in 1994, just days after Sinéad had ripped up her mother’s photo of the pope, live on US TV, she was due to sing at a Bob Dylan tribute concert. She was introduced onstage by Kris Kristofferson and then the crowd attempted to boo her off it. Zero chance of that happening. Famously, Kristofferson came back onstage to support her. He told her not to let the bastards get her down, and she replied ‘I’m not down.’ He didn’t do the ‘manly’ thing of grabbing the mike, he did the ‘sisterly’ thing. And then Sinéad sang Bob Marley’s ‘War.’

Perhaps, like the beam in my shed, she didn’t need the help but the help was there in any case.

‘Sister Sinéad’ is the song Kristofferson wrote about that.

One aspect of the carpentry use of the ‘sistering’ technique that I particularly like is how it doesn’t attempt to replace the struggling beam or take away its ownership of the task in any fashion, but stands beside it and literally carries the load alongside. It seems a very female way of working - augmenting the efforts done so far, without pushing anything aside or taking control.

Anyway, that’s where I am today; listening to Kristofferson and wearing my cleanest dirty shirt.