Saturday Sanding

Yesterday was a day that felt like we fell out of time.  We began as we usually do on Saturdays these days:  a discussion of what needs to get done.  But unlike most Saturdays, we didn't get around to most of the items on the task list.

It was a strange day because we had the flooring guys in the house.  It's much easier having them there on work days, where we have a place we need to be.  But we're at the point where it will feel good to make progress, so we said yes to having them work through the week-end.

We had to stay outside of the house most of the day because the guys were sanding the floors--I can't believe how noisy that is. We moved our chairs to the back parking area outside the cottage, about as far away from the house as it's possible to be--we could still hear the sanders, but it wasn't quite as loud. 

It was more pleasant than I thought it might be.  There was still some shade, and we faced a variety of vegetation--along with some butterflies! We spent a lot of time talking about the possible approaches to the house. We're really liking the uncluttered feel of the rooms as they get sanded. We're thinking of getting rid of a lot of the heavier furniture.

We may get rid of all of it.  We've inherited a lot of furniture from a lot of places and settings.  We no longer have room for most of it.

So, we spent many hours in the shade of the back parking area talking about possible approaches to furniture. It was pleasant. By the time we were done talking, I didn't particularly want to run errands with the masses of humanity that were sure to be there.

Today, the floor team comes again. There's more sanding, I think--I think that, because they left their sanders here. And then more staining. And then, the polyurethane. They think they may be done by tomorrow. Amazing.

And now, we must move on to the next project: the kitchen. Time to make some cabinet decisions. We may go to Lowe's after church. Our contractor's cabinet guy doesn't have what we want.

It is hard to believe that this work of hurricane recovery will ever be done--but slowly and surely, we are making progress.

Minimalizing

Let me capture a few thoughts before the flooring folks get here to sand and destroy the quiet of the day.  My spouse asked me what I thought about them coming on the week-end.  I said, "Let's do it."  I'm ready to be done.

Here's a shot of what the living room looks like now:

I've now spent lots of time thinking about the emptiness and how much I like it.  How could we preserve it?

Let me stress that these floors aren't finished.  When they're finished, I suspect I'll be even more loathe to move back in all of our stuff.  Here's a close up of the in between:

Yesterday I ate lunch with a friend.  She talked about the books on her shelves that she rereads when she can't get to the library.  For years, I've kept books for that very reason.  But lately, when I return to them, I've wondered why I kept them.

Yesterday was the first day when I was tempted to just give away all the books that I have in boxes.  It would free up a lot of space.  I just don't read most of my books anymore.  Once I read them periodically.

Once, they also gave me comfort to see them on the shelves.  That's still true for some of them--but likely not the way it once was.

There's a batch of books that are underlined--perhaps I'll keep those.  I value the window into my past self that they give me.

It's been an interesting time.  I've gone from worrying about flooding rains while we have stuff stored in the cottage to a vague wish that the decision would be made for me.  Once I became aware of that wish, I've been trying to reflect on what it means.

I confess that I'm not sure yet.  Let me continue to ponder.

Friday Fragments of Happiness

Yesterday's hearing in the Senate (to investigate the new charges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted a women when both were in their teens) was worse than I thought they would be--and I didn't even watch them.  As I was driving home at 5:00, NPR was broadcasting live from the hearing, so I did hear a little of the nominee's testimony--or was it an opportunity for Senators to blab on and on?  I switched to a CD of Mavis Staples.

So, to make myself happy, let me make a list of what has made me happy this week:

--Yesterday morning, I met a friend for coffee.  How wonderful to have a friend with whom I can have coffee, and we can pick up right where we left off, even though we haven't seen each other in a month.

--There have been many moments at school where I have had opportunity to reflect how lucky I am to work where I do.  Yesterday afternoon I had a long conversation on the phone about accreditation requirements--and it was a joy, not a chore.  This week has had lots of good moments:  New Student Orientation, videos that I took at the Orientation that turned out to be better than I thought they might be, work on various projects, planning for future projects, and reminder and reminder of how wonderful my colleagues are.

--Yesterday after work, we went to our neighborhood friends for our regularly scheduled cheese, crackers, wine, and good conversation.

--We brought a bike for the daughter of these friends.  Her joy at seeing this bike that had been festooned with glitter and fake jewels made me so happy.  That bike was left behind by the last person who lived in our cottage.  I'm glad that we kept it.  If our friends' daughter wants to keep the bike, I'll be happy to let her have it.

--Our house has level floors for the first time since we have lived here--hurrah!  The remaining wood planks for the floor came in and yesterday, they were installed.  All this blather about trade tariffs has made me anxious to get all of our home repairs done.

--At the end of the day, I watched the reboot of Murphy Brown.  I loved this show when it was first on the air.  I'll keep giving this show a chance, but by the time it aired, I had already heard or read the good bits in reviews and previews.  I have to admit that I wasn't as much in love with the show as I once was.

--The show made me remember Monday nights in grad school.  A group of friends would gather at our apartment where I'd have made us all a vegetarian meal.  We'd eat and talk and finish the evening by watching Murphy Brown together.  I feel fortunate to have had that group, and I'm also feeling lucky to have similar community now.

Self Care on a Day of Many Triggers

I will not be watching or listening to the Senate testimony today.  I'm fairly sure I know what the Supreme Court nominee and his accuser will say.  I don't get to vote, so I don't feel the need to watch this coverage.

But I also confess that I am weary.  I am tired of these constant reminders of how brutal we can be too each other.  I do know that I enjoy a certain amount of privilege in that I can choose to look away.  I don't want to look away for too long.  But I also need to exercise some self care.

Recently I told a friend that no other administration had made me feel so unsafe.  But then I reflected.  Under the second Bush administration, I felt unsafe, but it was something different.  I felt a distinct threat from my government, as an activist, even as I admitted that if the national government was coming after such a small-time activist as me, then times would be pretty grim.

The current administration makes me feel unsafe in a completely different way.  Every day's news coverage reminds me of how unsafe the larger world is for many of us, and reminds me of how hard it is to find justice when the rich and the privileged are involved. 

It also makes me feel unsafe because something about this administration seems to make larger-than-usual swathes of the population feel like they've been given permission to act in unsavory ways.  I know that many of us in the U.S. have always been subject to this cruelty.  Again, I recognize my place of privilege, past and present.

I'm feeling a strange mix of anger and resignation.  How can we not be any further along towards a vision of a just world than we are right now?  How can we be decades after the Anita Hill hearings and still be no better at handling these kinds of allegations?

But let me also remember that these times are not those times.  This year, 2018, is still a better time to be a woman than 1918 or 1818--or even 1991.  A woman can bring a charge forward, and she has a better chance of being believed.  We are better at knowing what boundaries should be, even if those boundaries are not always respected.  There are laws that might protect us all--once those laws didn't exist, and the idea that they should would not have existed.

Still, we have not yet arrived at the future that I hoped for when Anita Hill testified, and I was a younger woman in grad school.   Let me hold onto that idea of a time when people's bodies are respected, when boundaries are maintained, when people will not trespass even when we are unconscious, when the powerful do not prey on the weak.  Let that time come soon.

Reading N. K. Jemisin in this #MeToo Moment

I spent my time in airports and airplanes this week-end devouring N. K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season, which is the first book of a trilogy--and it's a trilogy that's already complete, hurrah!  Each book has won the Hugo award for best novel, so I was intrigued.

Why have I not heard of Jemisin?  I listened to this episode of the NPR 1A show, and her books sounded fascinating--I was making an Amazon order, so I decided, why not?  The Fifth Season sounded right up my alley:  apocalypse mixed with race and gender analysis, and a different planet.

It was all that and more.  It reminded me of the best of Octavia Butler, with a splash of Toni Morrison thrown in.  But the world that Jemisin creates is so intriguing, with its similarities to our world, but its vast differences.  I can't imagine what it must take to create an alternate world like this one.

As I was reading, news was swirling about the Supreme Court Justice and the woman who claims he sexually assaulted her during their teenage years at a party.  It was interesting to read this book as a conversation about what and who oppresses us and how we are groomed to participate in that oppression.  In the novel, the oppression is about a race of people, but it also applies to our current time.

And again I ask, why have I not heard of Jemisin?  And there's that lurking fear:  who else have I been missing?

And then I did what I always do after a good book:  I did a search for author interviews and book reviews.  Here's a great interview that takes place in Feb. 2016,  just after the publication of The Fifth Season.  It's an interesting look at her evolution as a writer; she now works part-time and writes.

I will be ordering the next 2 books in the series too.  I decided not to check them out from the library--let me support a fellow female writer.  Plus I want them in time for my next autumn travels.

Disappearing Free Time

Over the week-end, one of my retreat planning friends turned to me and said, "So what do you do in your free time?"

My first thought was, what free time?  And then my next thought was that my free time activities sound so dull:  writing, reading, cooking (at times when my kitchen hasn't been removed from the house).  Most weeks, I also do some abstract work with my Copic Sketch markers.  Here's a recent one that I like:

As I was thinking about space, I was trying to make little round shapes that look like planets.  But I was also thinking about interior space.

I don't do as much with fiber art as I once did.  I don't do as much with anything as I once did.  I really am spending more of my waking hours at work.  If I'm not at the office in my day job, I'm also teaching online, which requires huge chunks of time during most weeks.

That's why I'm grateful for time away.  On Friday, it was very warm in the cabin after I arrived at Lutheridge.  So I spent the afternoon taking a very long walk.  And then I sat on the porch in a rocking chair and sketched:

I thought I didn't like the image, but I looked again this morning and was pleasantly surprised.

I've spent the week-end reading a wonderful book, The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin, which I may write more about later.

I heard Jane Fonda talk about her life on yesterday's edition of All Things Considered.  She talked about how many people have lots of experiences, but few people contemplate the meaning of it all.  But lately, I've been wondering if I need to have more experiences--but part of that may be the all-consuming nature of these last rounds of home repairs.

But let me think about the giant leaps we took in terms of home repair last week:  the fence passed final inspection, the problematic self-piercing valve was removed, all of the flooring on hand was installed, the kitchen floor is more level than it's been since we've moved in--no wonder I'm a bit distracted.

Travel Inspirations

Yesterday, I finished writing the blog post and decided to try my hand at flash fiction, a super short story.  I had the idea on Friday as I traveled, and after letting it percolate, yesterday I decided to give it a try.  The story came in at just under 500 words.

My spouse and I have been talking about how much we like the empty parts of the house, and on Friday, as we discussed kitchen cabinets, we talked about how much bigger the kitchen looks without anything in it.

As I walked around Lutheridge on Friday, I had an image of a woman whose spouse dies when the old kitchen has been demo'ed, but before the kitchen cabinets have been ordered.  She decides to keep the kitchen empty. 

As I continued to walk, I had a vision of the ending, where she breaks the china.  She's the type of woman who has several china cabinets, because she's inherited so much family china, in addition to her own.

Now I will go back and add a few details here and there.  What fun!

I also have a vision for a poem:  Noah, after the flood.  Noah looks at the wrecked landscape, thinking about how we long for a fresh start, never thinking about the mucking out process that must happen with every fresh start.

It's been wonderful being away--I can't always travel when I feel the need for inspiration, for a different way of looking at things, but when I can, I'm happy about the ideas that come.  I can't always pull them off, but it's good to have some fresh ideas.