the papergirl

No skateboards.
No skooters.
But no superballs? Seriously are they saying do not bounce your tiny ball outside?  

Come on.  Come on.   Come on.  Come on - y...

We might as well say, no fun whatsoever.

First few months here in Nazi American, aka Townhouse heaven/hell - to say I've been stifled and frustrated is an understatement.   I love/hate it so very much.
All I care one bit about is Boy and Girl and their providable happiness and so I considered moving, suing, crying, running, fighting and moving/crying some more over skateboards, skooters, bouncy balls, when it truly sank in that rules were not meant to be broken, here at least.
    
Because nothing is ever perfect, I decided to join em rather them beat em for now and this meant getting involved  and it meant things like delivering the monthly news letter, which in my case includes shoving it under doormats, delivered via skateboard with a 10 year old boy of course.   

Tonight, a day later,  last block undelivered stack of newsletters rested on my counter waiting.  

My houseguest went to bed and I went to work.

Big dog and I, long, long after dark, stack of papers, solo cup in hand, half digested Tirmasu in my tummy, caffeine in my blood and oodles of confidence coursing through me, until I realized that walking up to strangeers doors to slip a piece of paper under their Welcome Mat at nearly midnight would become my own private reality show, all live, all real, all the while...
There are cats in the bushes, correction, were cats.
Sometimes people have lives and leave their nearly grown teenagers home with a handy-dandy gallon of Minute Maid and vodka.
Some adults go to bed early or late or not at all.
Fights are had, blinds and windows are open - Oh my.
Silence surrounds us. 
Silence is broken.
For big dog, just so many things to pee on.
For me, not necessarily a tube top but strapless just the same, does not go well with a leash, 100 lbs of aggression and fistful of newsletters in the dark, Solo cup long discarded, (whomever, forgive me).
Not everyone has a welcome mat.
Security lights are not in fact all that helpful.
Car alarms stink.
I love the night sky.
I feel terribly happy.
I feel terribly alone.
I wish someone was with me.
I'm glad no one is watching.
I hope that I never have to do this again,
I may always volunteer to do this very thing.

Once finished I realize it was the most fun I've had in a long time, delivering the news in the middle of the night to middle class America.
I don't know if thats a good thing or  a bad thing, likely both.

This is your local News carrier (literally) 
Stay Classy 
California...

Bless This Mess

Ticked.

A rock hit my windshield and shattered my lovely perspective.  No longer did I gaze at the mountains lying on top of one another like a pack of sleeping puppies as I sped along the roads Friday for a weekend away with kids and dogs.   Not even the transforming clouds could distract me.

I had no choice but to see the blatant break in smoothness, the fracturing of blissfully clear glass, the spiderwebbing crack in my relatively new windshield.

It was the start of many flaws in our weekend.

Furnace didn't lite.  Oven didn't heat.  Vacuum didn't suck, but the truck driver who struck my stone wall, leaving it crumbling into the street for me to repair does.

And to top it off,  my finicky plumbing acted up.

Why?

How come?

What for?

Why do things have to break down in succession?   

In effort to escape the mounting mess, I took kids and dogs to water's edge and there we played a while and I let go of my frustrations.   When I returned to the brokedown palace, I willingly caved.  I called the trusty old contractor, who's been there for me before and claimed my defeat against mounting decay... but wait, theres more.

He came, he saw, he conquered and I am the conquest.   

help me please ----

This reliable, glass eyed fella has built up my stoop, filled in the gaps, stuccoed walls and reached places I cannot with paint and brush as well as boosted my ego for a year or more, with unearned compliments and on this very day, when everything turned to crap, he found whatever it takes to  profess some sort of deep felt love for me.

I didn't get it.

But I'm starting to.

It's complicatedly simple.

   We love the "thick of it".  We people love the mess, but not the making of the mess or the cleaning up of said messes so much.   

We humans love to dwell in the impossible, the hardship, the trouble, but we don't relish the reparation and we don't want to recognize the production of disruption that leads to destruction.

I don't want to deal with everything breaking and I don't want to not be able to fix the mess myself but the mess was mine the minute I bought into the whole idea of something belonging to me.

(he likes me because I need him and that feels good - right?)

Awful job of saying simply... 

I want the glory but not the guts.

Everyone probably does for the most part, at one time or another.

After the uncomfortableness with the contractor, I felt sort of lost in myself and the life I live.

It lead to one of those domino effects and as annoying as it is to be grounded in reality, there was something sort of blissful about getting real with myself.   My old, silly and apparently lovable self.

Today I left something on the stairs and I walked up and away from it.

Today I felt the love everyone sent me on my birthday.

Today I accepted the compliment from one eye.

Today I loved the liar and hated the lie.

Today I realized that the reason I want the grey house to exist is so that I can show my love to those I live with and know.

Today I looked hard for an answer to a question.

Today I opened up to a yes I worried was a no.

Today I understood something unknowable about another's problem.

Today I committed to doing the work everyday.

Today I understand that -

a)  the mess itself is temporary.  

b) The making of the mess comes from some sort of blindness, some misrepresentation or overshot ambition.

Which leaves ... 

c) the cleaning up of this mess - 

and I see that there-in lies the reward.

The process of elimination, the ridding of problems and deletion of issues; this work leads to something worth holding on to.

There in lies the gift.

Gives new meaning to a plague my mother hung on the kitchen wall when I was a kid;

"Bless This Mess"

Go figure

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