Weight below the grass

An original fictional account set during an invented hillside wall-repair session.

The broken section ran along the hillside like a row of untidy teeth. Some stones still stood at either end, but the middle had collapsed into the grass. When Mari asked for volunteers, I stepped forward quickly. I liked tasks that showed their progress. We would choose the flattest stones, arrange them in a tidy line and stop when the line reached the same height as the old wall. Stones were only stones, after all.

Mari picked up two pieces that looked almost identical from above and asked which one I would use. I chose the smoother one. She turned both over. Mine was as shallow as a plate; the rougher stone had a long body that would reach deep into the wall. When she set it in place, nearly all of it vanished. The part I had rejected became the firmest thing in the row.

I began again, making a straight edge with impressive speed. It lasted until Mari pressed it with one hand. Three stones shifted together. She lifted them away and showed me the empty spaces underneath. We filled those spaces with small, awkward pieces that nobody would ever see. After half an hour, the face of the wall looked almost unchanged. I found this annoying. It seemed that the more carefully we worked, the less work we appeared to have done.

Later, I noticed that our new section leaned slightly towards the hillside. I offered to correct it before Mari tested it. Instead, she led me several metres down the path. From there, the wall no longer looked crooked. Its inward slope followed the older sections on either side, and the line I had wanted to straighten now seemed deliberate. Close up, I had been judging each stone as if it were alone.

By the end of the afternoon, we had repaired only a short distance. I pressed the top, expecting the stones to betray some movement, but they held. The visible face was quiet and plain; the decisions supporting it were buried inside. That morning, I had admired speed and smooth surfaces. As we carried the unused stones away, I understood that I had mistaken simple-looking work for work that required no thought.

How does the writer show the change in the narrator's understanding of wall repair? Support your answer with references to the passage.