Rotten

We’ve done a lot, a whopping lot, of do-it-yourself remodeling in our 44 years of marriage.  My husband is not easily daunted when it comes to tearing out stuff – walls, doors, windows, plumbing, wiring, you name it. Our makeovers have been time-consuming and challenging, but (eventually) worth it.    

“Our family always does things the hard way,” our youngest daughter said when she was a teenager.  Not as a complaint, just as fact. I call it pure wisdom. 

Well, today’s headline is that the old dog’s been at it again, sniffing around, digging up new dirt and uncovering old bones.  The handyman-dog, that is.  The do-it-yourself husband, the one who singlehandedly repairs and remodels everything.

That one. The lone wolf gone constructor.

Yesterday when he was scraping paint from around the outside of our picture window overlooking the lake, he discovered soft wood, and behind it, rot.  To. The. Core.  After digging deep into splintery wood, he proclaimed the window frame too spongy to repair: “A goner! The whole thing needs to come out!”  

To temporarily seal the gaping hole at the base of the frame (a supportive spot that now had no ability to bear weight), he filled it with spray foam that dries firm, like rock-hard whipped cream gone very, very nasty.  

There are flip sides to his discovery.  Of course it’s good he caught the vigilant rot monster before it chewed clear through the frame.  Now we can prevent disaster when one of those rogue winds sweeps across the lake, threatening to blow glass into the house. So in that respect, I’m grateful for his thorough probing and diagnosis.  Also, a friendly neighbor happens to have a good-quality window in his barn that will fit perfectly, and he’s offered it to us – free!  This is an amazing provision, and I am thankful.

However, the other side…well, I’m thinking about the labor involved.  The stress.  The construction mess.  The inevitable injury to interior walls and trim, and their recovery. I know these realities quite well, having lived them repeatedly.              

I would honestly love to hire the work done, just this time (please please), but that doesn’t seem to fit with the old dog’s plan. No new tricks.  Which is okay, I just need to acclimate and get ready.

Here we go again.

Sun-Struck Lily

The brilliant colors in the face of a lily beside our deck resemble those in the visage of the sun as it hangs in the evening sky like a fierce eyeball, mirroring in the lake.  For the next week or so this flower - a sunny facsimile of the sun’s beauty-gone-glory - will brighten and warm me each time I pass my stone-edged garden plot.

This flower encourages me by example, and inspires my own countenance to reflect hope and shed light - to also uplift and invigorate some other pilgrim on life’s journey. 

The Door to Mystery

“God is everywhere. There is no place God is not…You cry out to Him, ‘Where art Thou, my God?’ And He answers, “I am present, my child! I am always beside you.’

“Both inside and outside, above and below, wherever you turn, everything shouts, ‘God!’

“In Him we live and move. We breathe God, we eat God, we clothe ourselves with God. Everything praises and blesses God. All of creation shouts His praise. Everything animate and inanimate speaks wondrously and glorifies the Creator. Let every breath praise the Lord!”

- Elder Joseph the Hesychast

* * *

Whenever a door closes on a season of life, another opens to new realities. Such seems the case as I journey from one era of degenerative hearing into another.  

The iffy vista of continued loss seems dubious and uncertain.  And yet divine mystery is the greatest reality - mystery beyond my own feeble understanding that overcomes temporal lack, something to be embraced more than feared or resisted.

Doors representing transitional passage often do not shut and fling open overnight.  For me, the closure of normal hearing began 43 years ago with malfunctions that compounded over time.  Auditory erosion has been part of my life for decades, and yet because of recent significant escalation, I can no longer pretend effectively or fake my way.  

When this particular door of change finally swung wide, on the other side I found complicated, debilitating impairment. 

In this place I hear fewer and fewer tones, especially those used for communicative speech, and sounds I do hear are often harsh and grating: hyperacussis.  Water from the faucet drums a deafening chorus of painful rasps when it hits the bottom of the sink.  Crinkling tissue paper resembles the clash of overlapping, slashing knives. At the same time, tinnitus blares incessantly inside my head like overlapping referee whistles, taunting my sanity.  Together these threaten to literally drive me crazy.

However, a profound mystery unfolds at the same time.  In the midst of these challenges, God is present.  Although I have recently stumbled and tripped over distress, I have not fallen to despair, but continue to walk forward into His mystery. In any case He will not abandon me, and whatever lies ahead is not accidental but purposeful.  He is in it.  I am fractured, and yet whole by virtue of being wholly His.

I sit here in the middle of the dark night punching computer keys, inwardly longing to live well and not waste my suffering.  While navigating this very personal disability - one that is challenging for other people to understand - I hope to grasp intimacy with the Father and walk into future tomorrows on hallowed ground.  I am broken and weary, and yet I am His.  He presence is my greatest and loudest reality.

“Creation is…God's presence in creatures. The Greek Orthodox theologian Philip Sherrard has written that, 'Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of God's hidden Being.' This means that we and all other creatures live by a sanctity that is inexpressibly intimate, for to every creature, the gift of life is a portion of the breath and spirit of God.”

― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Ruth's Daisies

As I walked the road tonight after dinner, daisy faces took me back to childhood. In my mind’s eye I was wearing my faded red swimsuit and smashing hot tar bubbles with my calloused bare feet, swishing wild daisies with my spare hand as I passed on the way to the boathouse with a hot nickel tucked in my sweaty palm - payment for giving my mother a back rub. 

It was an almost-daily affair to visit Ruth’s little store back in the 50’s, a child’s paradise with its rack of candy bars.  Sometimes I picked a bouquet of daisies for Ruth along the way, but only a few since their stems were tough and had to be twisted rather than broken.  She loved those daisies as much as I did, or at least acted as if she did. 

Each time I pulled the wrought-iron handle on her black screen door, it stuck on the sand-covered concrete pad – so I slipped inside sideways, and helped it close behind me with a friendly little knock like no other sound in the universe. Ruth predictably smiled at me with joy written all over her red birthmark-covered face. She scrunched her shoulders, leaned over the counter on her elbows, and invited me to pick out my usual, a Heath candy bar, in exchange for the clammy nickel. 

With our transaction completed, she inquired about me: how many turtles I had in my collection now, what book I was reading from the library.  Surely we were planning to go out in our fishing boat for the academy band's annual moonlight serenade? Yes, I assured her we would follow the Fowler (a pirate ship, in my mind) the length of the lake and carry our lantern so other boats wouldn’t run into us.  Good, she was glad, and I’d better remember my favorite song and tell her about it later.

I almost wished I could twist the stems of tonight’s daisies, the whole clump, and take them to Ruth as a thank you for caring about me - but of course it is too late for that.  She no doubt passed on years ago. A plain woman by anyone’s standards, she chose to invest in the heart of a swimsuit-clad child with insignificant business, but a deep need for attention.  I can still see her face etched in my memory in great detail, especially her twinkly eyes, and I can’t say the same for any other significant adult in my childhood.

Belated Spring Cleaning

assiduous – adj. - constant in application or effort; working diligently at a task; persevering; industrious; attentive

* * *

Twice a year I flip into hot tub mania mode, the commonly held assumption being that cleaning the monster on the deck is my job. I am physically capable (a supposition that could be disputed), and no other volunteer shows up.  This spring I’ve been putting it off - am only a mere two months behind schedule - but decided today was the appointed day for the April cleaning.  

Tub cleaning is a job involving full-body contortions, the kinds of pretzel holds you see in wrestling matches.  I balance both feet on the pointy edges of a slippery seat, and then assiduously wipe the sidewall and all those wiggly jet things requiring fingertip scrutiny.  I try to reach whatever else is possible before shifting position. Then I do it over and over again. Assiduously, of course.

The assiduous cleaner-person (that would be me) cannot be easily grossed out either, because slimy film resembling grey snot always hides in the basket that sits atop the filter.  It furtively lurks beneath that curvy lip, obscene and vile, where only a contorted finger can reach. Yes.  Scoop it out. And try not to gag.

There are certain rules inherent to this job: 1.) The one using the hot tub least often is the one who maintains it, which is not a matter of democracy but assiduous reputation; 2.) The sun shines, and the rain falls, on both the lazy and the assiduous; 3.) Anything worth doing is worth doing assiduously.

Assiduous labor comes cheap in this instance. Payment for this job is a clean tub brimming with sparkly water that will invite playful summer gremlin-guests.  These visiting sprites will hop right in with sand-covered feet and sun-lotion-slathered bodies.  They will delight in the jet-powered water and exit the tub without a single thought of what they might be leaving behind.

Our water-jet playground will not remain clean for long, and yet I can count on help: the filter! I love that filter.  It’s almost like a soul mate.  We get each other down at the motivational level where assiduousness counts. 

A Rare Bird

Old Joe is our neighbor, but we don’t see him much.  He’s the strong silent type, and solitary, preferring privacy to togetherness.  We respect that.

When he does surprise us with a visit, it’s a big deal.  I love it when he quietly stops at our pier for a few minutes in the morning, a diligent, determined fisherman.