We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.
Maya Angelou
Maya and I spend most of the day sequestered in the woman cave. She, out of sorts and nervous with the noise coming from upstairs, tucks herself next to me on the loveseat when I’m working on this week’s bible study lesson (late, because of my girls being here), on my lap when I’m at my desk finishing up our taxes, and as close as possible without being on top of me when I’m sitting on the floor sorting through papers.
This getting things done is an unintended gift of my self-imposed confinement. I have been out of sorts for months, it’s been a tough start to this year and I’m nowhere near where I intended to be by this time. Things have piled up, slid by, and gotten messy. This week of chaos in the house will be the one in which I lay a foundation for getting back on track.
In the late afternoon, Maya and I venture upstairs. The old floor in the main living area has been taken out and floor guy is gone. There is a different guy is in the garage installing a new garage door opener. (We were almost late for church on Sunday when the door wouldn’t open.) Do you ever feel like it’s just one thing after another? Yeah, me too.
With the old floor (that I never liked) gone, I see some of the bones of this house and in the middle of the crazy-making mess see something I couldn’t see when the old floors were there—possibility. Something new. I think that I too need a time of tearing out. A time of refreshing. Something new. I need to clear the heaviness from my mind and dust off my intentions.
After the garage guy leaves, Gerry offers to go down the hill and pick up a pizza for supper. (I find him, a short while later, at his desk,ordering it online and I think I have fallen into an alternate universe.) He leaves to pick it up and I sit in my wing chair with Maya on my lap in the middle of my living room with plywood floors and torn off baseboards thinking about what’s next. I can’t stand the chaos but I see that a season of upset is necessary in order for something new to be created.
After supper I ask Gerry to help me rearrange a couple of things in the woman cave. We struggle to move a cabinet full of fabric and quilting paraphernalia. I wonder why we’re having so much trouble until I offer to take out some of the fabric and discover shelves jammed full with quilting and writing magazines. Oops. I had forgotten I moved them here a few months ago.
The cabinet moves much easier after I take them all out. I will move more easily in those things I’m called to when I get rid of some of the heavy things I’ve been carrying too.
Today, more of the same.
Beautiful.
Thank you, my friend. Looking forward to catching up with you.
I’m with you!