During summer vacation, I went to the countryside to help a friend renovate a house. Farm spaces are more spacious and usually have a tool shed, located either by the garden or next to the warehouse. The two major activities for French people during their summer holidays are going on vacation or renovating houses. French people like to make repairs and modifications, mostly taking advantage of the summer break to improve their living environment while on holiday. This is practical because hiring professionals is expensive and workers are hard to find; finding satisfactory workers is even harder. Generally, people hire undocumented workers to save money or invite friends to work together, combining labor with vacation. Thus, almost every French household has a toolbox, which is essential for daily life. Tinkering, replacing parts, and making adjustments are always necessary. It is not as convenient as in Taiwan, where plumbers or electricians can be hired at any time or for quick fixes. In larger spaces, there may be a tool shed fully equipped with various tools for self-repair and renovation. Major renovations require large tools, which farmhouses usually have if space permits, or they can be rented. As the Chinese idiom says, "If you want to do a good job, you must sharpen your tools."

My friend just bought a small farmhouse. The old, dilapidated tool shed was by the garden. The elderly former owner, in her eighties, could no longer live alone in this remote place. At her daughter's request, she decided to leave her lifelong home to be cared for by her daughter in the city. Before leaving, she specifically asked the new owner if she could return to see her lifelong home when necessary, conveying an intense, indescribable emotion. The feeling of leaving home in old age is a wordless multitude of thoughts. Leaving familiar places ties up one's heart. This is life, like dust in the universe or a passerby on Earth. Time hastens aging but also strengthens the awareness of existence. My friend told the former female owner, "You are welcome anytime," soothing her spirit. Farewell.

The tool shed was messy, covered in a thick layer of dust, filled with memories of time and its former male owner. Everything had changed, and now it had a new owner. We began to organize and clean, clearing away the thick ash, sorting the toolbox, items on the workbench, and categorizing tools. Things to discard were thrown away, and things to keep were preserved. Among them, we found several old photographs of the former owner, very unfamiliar to us. It was hard to imagine the memories of living here. Life is like this; change the time or space, and perhaps we would not exist at all. Glory, wealth, fame, and profit—who remembers your achievements? Unless you have a personal relationship with them, everything seems unfamiliar, so strange that it seems non-existent. Even recalling memories is difficult. For whom does existence serve? Who cares about whom? Besides facing our own existence, what else is there? Under orderly conditions, we gave the tool shed a new life, turning it into our workspace for renovating the house. Time flows on. All the old items from over thirty years ago are no longer just tools; besides preserving fragments of the former owner's unfamiliar memories, they have become antiques.