one thing at a time

I'm wonderwoman. Everyone but especially ME knows this.

(enough with the snickering already - it's not THAT funny.)

One stick of furniture at a time, we are putting the house back together. It feels oddly transitional, like putting the house back together after a hurricane must feel. There was the great crescendo leading up to our departure - checking last-minute details, double-checking reservations, packing our belongings in the basement while packing our personal effects into knapsacks and slingbags for a 10-day adventure that would see us going in a loop from here to Prince George to Vancouver Island, and back through the Okanagan. The crescendo, which was LOUD and intrusive like the Dobly sound test at the beginning of movies that makes the insides or your ears itchy, included unforseen glitches with a photo shoot, drama at work, and a crisis situation with my baby sister, adding to the explosive nature of our departure.

We didn't leave. We hauled ass out of town, in a flurry of sawdust and forgotten things, like my precious sweet dolly Sasha and a jacket for Serejane. We exploded out the gates like a horse with glass under its saddle, making a break for the great unknown, fleeing the scene of self-created chaos as if our home was on fire and with only a vague idea of being westward ho.

The trip was amazing, and I'll go into details when I finally have pictures to go with the stories, but for now, suffice it to say it was worth wearing a few holes in the Visa for.

~home again home again jiggety jog~

Although I knew in the back of my mind that our home was a shambles, I don't think I was mentally prepared for my return. By allowing it all to seep into the darkest creases of my brains rather than keeping it on the periphery, all I did was make it possible for me to be completely naive about reality. Messages and emails piled up, laundry that HAD to be done immediately, groceries to be bought, furniture to be moved, pictures to be rehung. The luxurious new floors without a single thing on them but a fresh glossy newly refinished gleam taunt me as much as they fill me with delight - the culmination of four years of patience and 8 months of careful planning. My trip and the new floor didn't erase the one-year anniversary of my father's death on August 3rd.

I've been stumbling about the war zone formerly known as my basement, assigning tasks to my sons and daughter randomly in an effort to unearth the artifacts that each and every one belong somewhere else - 'please put that stool over there' or 'can you hammer these little nylon slidey thingies onto every leg on every piece of furniture you can find' or 'can you find me a pot to make supper?' This phase of denouement feels only moderately productive and very much transitional, like we weathered some great storm and managed to come out the other side, somehow changed or emboldened. But at the same time, when I come out of denial long enough to admit it, I know I'm not wonderwoman, and between work, kids' camps, weddings, and personal commitments, I sadly sigh, moderately bored with the same-old same-old-ness of it all. It'll be weeks before the house is back to normal. Just in time, I suppose, for me to find a new way to overwhelm myself.

Comments

Babzy said…
Whew! I'm pooped.

Was this the trip I drew you the map for? Or is that one still coming up?

Glad you're back.
fmartell2 said…
Sounds like a crazy, but fun time was had.

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