Friday, May 13, 2011

Freedom from Want

I took a speed-walk (wannabe jog rather) with myself tonight--the new nearly-thirty-three-year-old version of myself that is.

I intended to do a walking meditation and reflect, but instead ended up perhaps over-reflecting. I've always been a painfully self-conscious, overly-self-aware kind of person, something that I un-ironically knew about myself and accepted in the way one accepts a chicken pox scar--meaning, it was there, I was there and that's that.

I've been obsessing most lately on house repair starting about eight months ago. When a nearly-completely corroded copper pipe in our Victorian-style and Victorian-age house finally kicked the bucket (no pun intended?) we ended up with a raining ceiling, with tiles folding like cardboard and with a couch on its way to a moldy death.

"Like a good neighbor," State Farm replaced everything, but like a bad neighbor sent us a threatening letter a few months later insisting that we complete a laundry list of repairs on our home within ninety days. We have about fifteen days left.

Well, stress and worry are my fortes so I jumped right on this. I called contractors, did interviews, research, talked to neighbors (real ones not the State Farm mofo ones!) all between fussing over my sweet Joshy.

So what do I see when I walk contemplatively in my town? Siding, porches, windows, paint jobs, and ok, a few ridiculously Rockwellian kids climbing trees and playing ball on the lawn. I find myself creating an envy-green home for myself-- a Frankenstein creation of parts coming together into a giant conglomeration of The Best House.

But I feel guilty as heck of course. I don't want to want stuff. Don't covet your neighbor or something? So I look in a window at a family poised for dinner--looks like am extended one with a few gray heads and a few little heads. As I begin to piece their conversation together in my mind, I don't hear anything polite. This adorable family is quite cranky, with their lovely blue gingerbread siding and their well-manicured landscaping. They aren't miserable, just irritable, just ok, and I am starting to feel ok too.

hecking out all the houses in my town.

Sent from my iPhone

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