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

,

the while

It's been a while since I watched a film, beginning to end, in the middle of the day.   The word decadent comes to mind.

It's been a while since a friend came to my door early, unannounced, without a preemptive text -  then promptly sat on my bed chatting to me as I picked out something somewhat amazing to wear.

It'd been a while since I felt steel bars in the palm of my hand as I swung rung to rung cross the monkey bars in the school yard.  I vaguely recall opening my tightly clenched hands and truly letting go...

It'd been a while since I experienced the simple thrill finding a secret path to walk on brings.

It's been a while since I felt like my good old self again and it's been longer still since I'd called my old self good.

Every time I'm patient, every time I resist or hold on or hold out or hold still just to let go, I'm grateful.  

I only regret the things I do and rarely what I don't do, because most often what I don't do is only not done because I already did something, something other then let go.

We love who we love and love who we do for a reason and we don't who we don't... and there, there is everything we need know.

It's been a while since I landed on my own two feet.

It's been a while since I realized those feet are awfully good at landing.

Roll Over

I had to confess, as we drove out of town and toward the desert this morning.

"Venus" I said, "despite my love for him, I've been kind of glad that he's been gone"

There was an under current of stress in my life and has been since the very day we met.

But the past weeks, ever since I sent him away, that stress just wasn't part of my days... 

 And this morning, every mile closer to him, I felt that stress stretch cross my heart.

Female - Male relationships are complex, no matter what the species.

Sprung from his cell, he appears to be a new man.   

Confident.

Calm.

Joyful.

Diligent.

Disciplined.

P R O U D

He's new.

He's licked his bad habits.

Now only I can screw him up.

Funny, I'm profoundly aware of my bad habits; my lack of discipline, diligence, pride, calmness and even a lack of uninhibited joy.

Shame on me.

Where are they and when did they...

hmm,

Maybe I need rehab.

You know I'm no good....

Welcome home Lover Boy.

"lie down"

the cake nazi

If I could take it back, I would.

It's funny, the thing that might make me a good parent, is also currently the thing that's making me feel like a bad one.

He bit her.   

It's inexcusable.

I know...

and so I said, out loud, in front of others, "You don't get a Birthday party!"

and at the time I meant it and at the time it felt like punishment befitting a hideous crime.

A tame boy, biting his older sister at a hotel, on vacation with a group of friends is a pretty awful thing.

Now, months later, closer to the actual Birthday birth date, it feels like a crime to not throw a party for a boy who'll turn ten just this one time in his one and only wild and precious life.

Because I love him, I have to teach him how to behave.

Because I love him I want to shower him with gifts and attention and celebrate the day he was born.

Because I love her I have to protect her from biting brothers.

Because I love them both, I have to follow through and be "of my word".

Son of a...

I guess it's, "No cake for you"...

Love stinks.

Accidental Amazingness

I picked him up, just like always and just like always, I felt a happiness roll up inside of me just seeing him.

"Today at school", he said.

I prepared myself for an ordinary tale of things that happen on a routine basis to my 9 year old boy.

for example;

*I got a paper-cut

*The teacher told us...

*My side hurt while running in P.E.

*Somebody passed gas.

But not this...

"Today at school" he said,  "I accidentally saw heaven".

He'd been out on the playground gazing up at the sky.   He described to me the clouds; big and beautiful, a little dark, stacked one behind the other.   Then, some of these clouds he watched separated so that he, quite by accident, 

glimpsed heaven. 

  

"Its orange Mom", said with a secretive certainty one might imply as they shared a simple truth about what was taken in, like they'd unintentionally had a look up some girl's skirt as she climbed the jungle gym.   No doubt what was seen.   

"Isn't that great?" he stated more then asked.

"It is great", I replied.

"I can think of nothing better then seeing heaven, especially not on purpose".

and I see heaven too...

Every time I look at you.

blackberries in the house...

One - 
Blackberries appear, navy blue and plump, begging to be picked and eaten all along the trail to the lake
Two -
Girl likes school
Three -
He loves me
Four -
He loves me not...
Five - 
He loves me

I woke alone and drove up early today.  I sped on the freeways, navigated the winding side roads I've come to know and love.  I stopped at the bakery and expertly ordered the things I find most spectacular; carrot and blueberry muffins, apple pie burritos, cinnamon crisps.  I got to the house, opened the windows - I literally, just like in the story, The Night Before Christmas, in anticipation of Santa, "Opened the windows and threw up the sash..."   Excited about the arrival of my father to the lake house I bought almost a year ago in the mountains.    He's never been here yet and for good reason.   He's not been well and it's a hard drive and can be an inhospitable landscape for anyone under the  
weather.   But today he's coming.  
Count blessings once again...

He came.
We ate.
We spoke about and thought of the ones we love who exist far away from us.   We mentally brought them here,
We walked to the water.
We took a photograph to remind us.
We laughed, reminisced about lakes before this one and times gone by. 
We walked some more.
I effortlessly recounted my blessings as he left before darkness fell.

1) My daughter seems to be okay in school and thats huge...
2) My son is just the same as ever, but even better if possible; perfectly adorable, despite life...
3) We three found a home that we like and we moved into it...
4) My Dad survived cancer treatment and is doing well...
5) I am a decent juggler, doing okay with the hand life dealt me
6) I survived Crossfit this week, despite being lazy in regard to it all summer and I love it more then ever...
7) I have friends and family I cherish and admire far more then I can express...
8) My father was here and he loves me and I love him right back...
9) The sun is setting on the beautiful blue lake...
TEN

Ten is a toughie, because I feel this odd sense of emptiness or something along those lines.
Ten is - I don't have a designated "boyfriend".   (wtf)
Ten is pathetic.
Ten is a piece of  _rap.
Ten is a mistake
Ten is possibly a blessing in disguise.
Ten is maybe simply this... I cannot touch or feel the man who loves me, but there are several men who love me despite my best efforts; like my brothers and one or two who will not be present no matter what I offer up and then there is my father who loves me absolutely and so maybe I need to look to Our Father Who Art... you know where... who gives me this day and my daily carrot muffin...

How about this for TEN -
It's blackberry time at the lake.

And how about a bonus, how about an added number like... ELEVEN - everything is possible...

go on and grow...

The wisest folks of all seem to tell us that most people are fearful when it comes to change.

I can see that.   I can see that in almost everyone I know, even the biggest, strongest, smartest. 

Now that's scary.

I'm afraid to say, that I am not - I am not afraid of change. 

Nope.

Not me.

I embrace it.  I cause it.  I look for it.  I wait patiently and also impatiently for it.  
I need it really. 

I may in fact be a little addicted to it and I've been wondering 

how come.

Why do I constantly need to have change or progress or alteration?   

Was I always this way?

Yes, I was, I realize, which leads me to this...

What on earth will I do when things are as they should be and change no more?

Of course things will always change, but I won't be able to keep up the pace of progression I've induced for the past decade and especially the past eighteen months or so.  So... then what?

Recently in a strange turn of events, my big, bad and I do mean bad dog, well he took a bite out of me. 

Yup he did.  

I know.   What a sh_thead.

You know what I did?

I changed him, am changing him currently actually.

I sent him away to be reconditioned by some hopefully highly capable dog whisperer.

He should come home quite tame, fundamentally altered.   

Fingers crossed.

Here in my new home, settling in, I can feel myself slow down intentionally in the work that I've planned to do, in the things I am determined to change.   Why?   Because once it's done, well,

 then what?

Maybe I am fearful of sameness, stagnation. 

Maybe I'm afraid of completion.

Why?

I think I know why and the answer does in all honesty concern me, which is a softer way of saying it frightens me.

When I finally run out of things to change, I will in fact be left with the task of changing nothing other then myself.

And when I do, I will have a different answer to my own question, "Was I always this way?"

Nope.

Not me.

 go grow yourself