Books and New Skins...

I've been a hoarder of books since I first discovered the Nancy Drew series when I was about eight years old. Three years later I discovered the Lord of the Rings and after that - let's just say book shelves were required in any room I called mine.

One of the best parts of college was getting to go to the campus bookstore at the beginning of each semester. As an English major, I reveled in the sheer amount of books I got to read for each class. From Plato to Faulkner, poetry to memoir, I was happy when the books started to pile up. My friends thought I was a bit odd. I worked at the college library and then moved to retail book sales. I worked in bookstores until I was pregnant with my first kid.

This was all pre-internet, of course. Books were the predominant way to explore the world - and escape the world when needed. I was quite the escape artist, being the introverted hermit that I was - and still am. For the last thirty years, my library has always been a key part of any home. Books are comfort. Books are knowledge. Certain books will always be old friends who gently remind me of who I thought I was and who I dreamed of being.

When we started the moving process that had us finally downsizing last fall, the books got packed up pretty quickly. For the most part, the library of books stayed in those boxes until this past weekend when I finished painting the built-in bookcases kindly made by Andy. Nine months had passed - nine months of one of the most profound transitions I'd ever made in my life.

And the books tell the tale.

As I unpacked and sorted through the boxes, I realized how many of the books were no longer interesting to me. I've donated hundreds of books over the years but never have I been so aware of how my own shifting interests have guided that process.

Books on organizational health and leadership - into the donate pile. Books on parenting (other than my all time favorite, Parenting from the Inside Out) - on the pile. Psychopharmacology, the old DSM-IV - goodbye. Other therapy books, psych theory, how to build a practice - gone. Taking care of an orchard, year-round gardening - heading to new homes.

There is nothing like physically moving just far enough away to find a little perspective - and figure out what really draws my gaze as opposed to what I need to be looking at to feel like a "good" parent or a "team player"; or what other people think I should be steeping myself in so I can be my 'best self" (How does anyone else really know that about someone?).

This last nine months has brought me  - time and time again - up against this question: what is important to me? And of course the follow up question is - why would I ever waste time pursuing anything that doesn't energize and excite me? Why keep books on my shelf that no longer serve me? Why hold on to old versions of who I thought I should be when it is just so easy to breathe and be myself?

Because sometime it isn't easy to set aside all that conditioning that tells us to strive for some better version of ourselves. And that image is usually generated outside of our souls by all sorts of influences - like family, society, community, age group, gender, etc. We aren't taught to be unfinished masterpieces, we're told to keep taking painting lessons until someone -someone who is not ourselves - tells us the painting is perfect.

That just isn't going to happen. There is always another someone else. And besides, the perfection "lessons" are fucking exhausting.

So I'll keep my hiking guides, creative writing inspirations, books on ecology. Children's books that are no longer in print and my first edition Simarillion. Yeats and Sagan, Palmer and Plotkin. Mysteries and sci fi, poetry and Marcella Hazan cookbooks. Books that invite me to dream.

I'll buy new books and generate new boxes of donations. New directions. New strokes on the canvas. Releasing the old, painting over old lines. Outside the lines.

A piece of poetry that I love -

Be received.

Be received by the broad earth of your worthiness

Cast off everything

Everyone else has known for you

Move gratefully from these old skins

And this time, as you toughen,

Decide

for whom?

- em claire

I like this new skin...

Chips Falling: Part 2

I sent the Where the Chips Fall post to Andy to read over before I posted it.
What follows is an interpretation of our phone conversation:

...After telling me that he'd read through the post, he hesitates, ever so slightly, searching for the right way to ask - “So, were you just talking about doing something or are you serious – I mean, there’s a lot of little stuff that needs doing-"

Basically – was I serious or was I just blowing wind? Hmmm. Well. Time to show my cards.

“I think my project is going to be the pantry.”

The current pantry has the most rickety, ill-planned shelves you have ever seen. I need the space. I need to find my flax seeds, jars of homemade jam and pasta sauce. I dropped my bin of flour last week because the shelf tipped slightly as I was putting it back. That was not a happy moment.

Long pause. “The pantry?” Slight confusion and then I can hear his thoughts catch up, “Oh, the pantry shelves. Okay, alright. Well, you’ll need to take everything out, and you’ll want to –"

“Andy.” Said just sharp enough to stop his high speed train of project design.

“What?”

Now I take a moment to find my words, “I want to do this. I want to be able to ask you questions, have you show me how to do what needs to be done but - I.Want.To.Do.This.”

“Oh.”

Silence. Okay, I think he feels shut out - that’s not what I wanted. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I attempt explaining, “I want to do the research, find what I want and then deconstruct it with your help. I want to do the work – so you don’t have yet another thing to think about­ - you have enough projects and enough on your plate and I figured that this was fairly straightforward and that it might be a great way for me to figure out how to use a table saw and power drill.”

“We don’t have a table saw.” He says absentmindedly. Uh oh. I hear him typing away on his computer, “huh, doesn’t look like IKEA has any decent options either…”

“WILL YOU STOP????” He can’t see me but I point to my own chest, “MY PROJECT!” And I wasn’t yelling, just being forceful, honest. Kind of. This was harder than I thought to get through to the Renaissance man that I am married to. “Look,” I say, trying for reasonable, “I’ve just sent you a link for a DIY pantry project that I found.”

Click, click. “Huh. Oh, that looks great. Okay, yeah, no problem. We’ll need –“ and he starts rattling off lengths and widths of wood, types of screws, braces and god knows what else. I love this man. He is the most capable, smartest man I know. If I ever get to choose one person on a desert island with me – it would be him with a Swiss Army knife. I could digress into other reasons why I would want him with me but his mad MacGyver skills is almost at the top. And he is having a really hard time allowing me to take point on this.

“Andy.”

"Hmmm?" I can hear the excitement – and humor in his voice.

“What are you doing?”

Now he sighs, “Gosh, hon, I guess I got a little excited about working on a project with you.”

Oh. Trump card. Not fair.

How do I resist? He is so helpful, so sweet - and will have my shelves done by the end of the weekend if  I don't nip this in the bud right now.

Twenty nine years of marriage has me saying, “Sweetheart, you will be helping me, we will be doing this together, but you are going to teach me how to put up my pantry shelves. You are going to answer my questions, teach me about buying straight wood and grimace when I cut something wrong. Let me take the lead on this – let me ask, help me learn.”

“Okay,” He draws out the word on a sigh but I can tell he’s fine with what I’m asking. Maybe he was just testing my commitment. Maybe he figures he'll be doing the work anyway-  ha! I don't think so. I have plans. I need this. 

And...

Old pantry shelves gone...getting ready for the new

I haven’t told him yet what my next project is going to be. We'll see how the first one goes. 

Update... two months later....

Using the biscuit cutter

New and improved

Project inspiration: The Craft Patch blog's How to Build Pantry Shelves

Seeing just where those chips fell...

Daring to let go – and letting go – creates a certain sense of free-fall.

For a limited amount of time.

We’ve moved. The old house is up for sale, the new house – well, the new house still has boxes stacked in corners; but, for the most part, it is a wonderful place to be.

But wonderful is quite relative. With the right amount of make-up, deflection and lighting – something can look quite beautiful but be rather ugly on the inside. Like plumbing that leaks and clogged drains. Hot and cold water reversed – only discovered when hot water finally works. Wood rot, mice, water six inches deep under the house when it rains. And ivy.

Who plants the pernicious weed known as ivy?

I’ll get back to the ivy in a minute. This new house, so beautiful with its seductive view, has a few problems. Actually, the “few problems” fill a 2-page spreadsheet.  And most of the problems are manageable – if we could clone Andy and hire a professional wrecking crew. Did I just say that? Yes I did. Perhaps what I mean is a contractor, landscaper, plumber, electrician, carpenter and erosion specialist.

Patience – as a state of being – has suddenly become my mantra. Free-fall is over and the landing was a little rougher than anticipated. Most of the time I can look around and feel the blessings that surround me but when one more small thing suddenly reveals a glaring problem, its hard to keep everything in perspective. Last Sunday all I felt was defeat. Because I decided to go start in on the ivy off of a small stone patio. Not a small project like, say, clean out all the gutters or install a sump pump. No, I picked the ivy. And, as you can imagine,  it was an overwhelming task – completely daunting with little to show for a good hour’s work. Frustrated, tired, and seeing just how deep the tangle of ivy was, I pulled viciously on a vine using the tried and true magical swear words that my father used to use and I wasn’t supposed to repeat … and that god damn sucker came up and viciously slapped me in the eye.

Stunned, in pain, my eyes now blurred with tears – and one eye that couldn’t open, I tackled that fucking vine until it lay limp on the pile of other torn out vines. Yes, the small pile. And then I stood there, trying to breathe past the pain in my eye, wondering if I had done any serious damage, wondering if I had to go wash it out, wondering what the hell I was doing knee deep in an ivy patch while the sounds of Andy tearing apart a wood rotted deck around the corner mixed in with the sounds of the surf right below me. The world continued to spin, the day was beautiful  - but I looked up at this house and felt the slap all over again. The woman who sold this house to us lied about so many things. It blows my mind. Our other house sits empty and staged waiting for someone to pay for the privilege of living in its well-constructed rooms.

And I asked myself – had this move really been worth it? Was this move up the coast, away from family, friends, community, work – worth it? How can I find the patience to let go of the “list” when I feel like I’m chained to its priorities?  Andy looks at the list and he sees doable action items that he, himself, can complete.  It might take awhile, but he has the confidence, skills and strength – god, the energy – to pretty much do whatever needs doing. He was practicing how to sweat copper pipes the other day. If anything, I need to be calm, patient and at peace – just so he doesn’t kill himself trying to take on more projects while also juggling a full time job, commuting, and managing the other house down south.

For the last twenty years, I’ve lived a life that has come with a lot of privilege. I still do but the financial faucet is closed down while we wait on the sale of the other house. I feel a little awkward saying this but my impatience stems as much from not being able to simply make a bunch of phone calls to get this house in working order as it does from my own inability to start in on some DIY projects that might challenge my inept skill set. I’ve spent the last twenty years developing my yard maintenance skills – and you already heard  what the ivy had to say about that.

So what to do?

It took a couple days. I didn’t sulk – too much. I studied the list. And realized that I was going to have to start at the beginning.

I was going to have to learn.

I was going to have to tackle learning a new skill so that I could tick something off that long list of projects. This would undoubtedly result in me driving Andy nuts with questions on how to use power tools -which actually sounds pretty amusing. This would also include making mistakes -okay, I could take some lumps - and getting frustrated which meant I would get to channel my dad when the nail doesn’t go in straight – but at least I would be doing something. I need to be part of the solution, not waiting for other people to make all of these problems go away.

I've got some ideas but I want to do my research to make sure that I'm perfectly capable of seeing whatever I pick through to the end.

With help of course.

Learning means I need to ask questions, teach myself and be taught.

I am going to find my string cutter for the ivy though - no more ms. nice...

Part 2 - here