“I bought new wire snips after my old pair rusted shut, & set off for the barn, to take down a section of old fencing. Things bother me a la feng shui, keeping me up at night until I take action. But time is money, so I tried to do it quickly, soon realizing I was up against the need for more tools, to do it right. So I did it shitty. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Suffice it to say that the impulse to make things more beautiful is worth aiming for. Even if you don’t have a cordless drill, no, just a hammer, a pry bar and whatever leverage you have the strength to apply. It just feels good, almost always, to linger in an old barn, anyways. Looking at it, discovering features you hadn’t noticed, reminding yourself to bring a broom down next time, to sweep out the fossilized chicken poop. The old hand painted bird houses, still nailed to posts, tipped over, now separated from the children who painted them. The hoof pick. The rubber mat, crusted with mud, that must have meant something, to the previous owners. I think about what makes a place home. Gazing around at rafters & hand hewn posts, I think about every compartmentalized dysfunctional family, that ever was. The past, that can’t talk to the future. The younger people who were so desperate to care, who eventually gave up, and put up walls instead. I flip a switch, to see if anything is still connected. I think it’s up to me, to follow the circuit to its root, if no one else will. I think about my friend who helped me by dismantling the part of the barn, I just couldn’t stand the most. He never charged me. His instinct to help me, meant the view from the road would be improved. I could hang Christmas lights, a wreath, a star. And it would illuminate what maybe, I could not. Not on my own. After so much loss. Which is why we hurt ourselves, doing manic things, like cutting thick wire, with cheap tinsnips, just because we’re sick of staying the same, stuck in the same, sick paradigm. But, let me end on a hopeful note. It’s a more accurate appraisal of where I come from, and what I feel reflected back to me, from other humans, every single day. It’s almost the flip side of despair, this recognition that all around us, amazing lives are going about their miraculous existences, ready to infect us with joy. I wish I could personally thank the cashier at Maplefields, for example, who called me “Hun” on Saturday. “I haven’t seen you for a while”, he said with a smile, while not making eye contact. I think I had a coffee, a saran-wrapped pastry of questionable origin, and a quart of Monument Farms half & half. I was still feeling self-conscious for pulling in with brakes that sounded like a grinding wheel. I managed to emit sounds, resembling “I haven’t been off the mountain much, lately” which sounded a little more dramatic then I’d meant it to. “Pretty windy, the other night?” he totally knew the score. “OMG”, I piled on “someone clocked it in at 84 mph up our way”. If I’d felt more ambitious, I suppose I could have told him about being locked in a yurt during the worst of it. But, it seemed irrelevant to our brief encounter. After all, I was just buying coffee. Pretty much only because I needed to have an excuse to get off the mountain after being trapped in a yurt. My logic, at the time, seemed impeccable, to me. Yet I just loved him, for calling me “Hun”. I remember when cashiers started calling me “Ma’am”. What a gruesome milestone of aging. Yes, from the pinnacles of cuteness, each one of us must someday fall. I always say to my friends: if you want to live to a ripe old age, then you’re going to have to endure the indignities of being old. That’s the trade off. As Spock said using his unique hand signals “live long & prosper”. Which implies you don’t complain about longevity. It’s all a magic trick. Slight of hand, and a funny play, if you’re willing to step back and embrace the farce. Quietly accepting, in a dignified way, that most of the treasure may go down with the ship.”
