Saturday, August 10, 2013

Rushmore or Rushless?

Good afternoon Relatives

its raining  its a soft quiet steady rain  one in which I can sit on the porch and hold my feet out into and only my feet get washed  its the kind of rain where the ground says yea! thanx for showing up and the little plants say drink! drink! drink!  

I am grateful for the rain

this morning getting out of bed was hard  so hard in fact that once I had gotten up and done the feeding and cleaning chores for the beautiful animals that I went back to bed   I was painful  terribly so  my wrists and shoulders my head and lungs and body were painful   I was hot so hot infact that I felt cold all over  

part of me wanted to stay in bed and rest  part of me said stay in bed and sleep the entire day  and part of me wanted me to push through  to keep going and to hurry up and finish the living room even though I felt like I was on the tip top of the tipping point dangling over the abyss of pain and headed the wrong way  my brain had plenty of examples for me of others who had worked through pain  myself included  but my tired hot head just swept them all aside and i brought in the Sticky Wicket and Marshall Valentine to watch over me while i rested and I went back to bed  it was comforting to have their silence under the bed  it was comforting to be held in the love they so freely share with me  I love them also

so we slept and slept and finally this afternoon I woke up with a start and thought Oh! I feel better  
not finished yet though healing  and repairing but much better

it was amazing to work on the living room this week  each day I did a little more  than the day before  each day ripping out plaster and lathe and old sheet rock and wallpaper  sweeping up as I went   on wednesday the menards guy brought two pieces of fire board to go behind the steel in the corner where the woodstove will be installed  in case there was rain or a heavy dew I cut them in half so I could carry them and brought them inside to protect their $13.00 value  its funny how some things are costing more than others   8x4 fire board 6.50 each  its very dense like rock and very heavy  it prevents any heat from penetrating into the depth of the wall and thus decreases the likely hood of a fire from the stove  how cool is that    for about the cost of a hot chocolate and a biscuit that board will hold that corner for 100 years   cool huh?

the next day i put up the board and finished taking out the lath and plaster that I could get without a major rearrangement of the room  then the final day on friday i dragged the canisters of insulating spray foam out into the sun to heat up  and measured cut and installed the steel in the corner over the fire board  then sprayed the foam  then trimmed some of it till my hands just said enough

it was last night that I realized I had forgotten to wear my respirator when spraying the foam  my lungs were very unhappy and i think that is part of why I was so painful this morning  i breathed in the fumes of the foam   and I think I was bit over ambitious in doing so much the last day  it is exciting to actually redo this room   it is like a magnet of change drawing me out beyond the borders of my ability

I took some pictures for you   although the camera is wonderful to have and easy to transfer they do not capture the sense of joy or of change or of beauty that the house is once again moving into  bit by bit

but not today   today we are all resting and the rain is supporting that choice to be gentle and to take a break  

its not so much the cause and effect of actions as it is the internal impetus that I learn to listen to or not  

its not so much overdoing as underlistening  perhaps thinking that hurry will bring what I believe I will be pleased by  

rushing more or rushing less hurrying down the road with never a glance left or right or a picnic on a rock or a venture into the meadow  because when i was young my set point was set  to rush more   to the end  to the goal to the accomplishement which more often than not felt empty once reached until i would find a new rushing
now that I am older and have decided that taking a look at who and how and why I am matters  like the bones of this old house exposed and debrided the original intentions and care and work which was magnificently done and best available at its time 1910,  it was good for then but not so much for now, along the way of it doing its work it also collected all the dirt and debris and smoke that passed through the walls  through the house now we have better ways to insulate  to prevent dirt from accumulating in the walls to hold back and out the moisture and the sound  now like me looking at what it is that brought me to today I am able to debride what was put in early on and change it
but I had to learn what to change it to   I had to learn that replacing rushing more with rushing less is not change at all

it has at times been painful to make the transition from the old to the now differently and sometimes it has not been pretty or easy for me or those who are around me I look at the great pile of rubble that covers the slope of the mountain under the faces of the monument in South Dakota and I wonder why we are so surprised that there is rubble and risk of injury when we look inside ourselves to bring out of our rock the monument that we will leave behind us
one thing I will try and remember and one thing perhaps you might is that rather than seeing the negative of the work to be amazed that it is being done at all
how many people carved the mountain?  why not more

the rain encourages me to be pleased by the foam  and the change  the bones of the house because once they are covered over they will fade into the whole of the accomplishment without the anymore singular opportunity to be standing fully present in their presence in the gift of their being ness

perhaps today is a thought about the joy of me as I am  the letting go of how I was before I wasn't and the letting go of who I will be when this was is wasn't


best to you my friends best to me best to the board and the foam and the beautiful dogs who are so good at sleeping

mb

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