in complete darkness I lose balance
The past two and a half weeks have been a blur of getting other people to work on the house - updating the wiring and plumbing, refinishing floors, painting the exterior - and of working on it myself: stripping old shellac off the window woodwork; re-staining the woodwork and adding a couple coats of spar varnish; buying and installing new light fixtures and cabinet hardware; washing walls and spackling holes and plastering cracks and caulking windows and sanding everything in sight and priming where necessary in preparation for painting, the first round of which begins tomorrow afternoon.
All of this activity has been exciting (my house! mine!) right up to the point at which it becomes exhausting and overwhelming. But I'm on a deadline and a budget, so exhaustion and overwhelm don't necessarily mean I get to take a break; I've been over at the house until about 8:30 most nights, and then more often than not I go back over for a few hours after feeding myself and the cats and get back to the rental again between 11:00 and midnight, riding my bike through the dark streets, everything quiet until one of the night trains comes through.
Tonight was another session of dirty work, sticky and mosquito-bitten in the late twilight - this close to solstice it lasts until after ten o'clock - and on into the dark, until finally, frustrated at having so much left to do, I left tools and rags and canisters scattered on the bedroom floor, emptied buckets and rinsed the sponge and washed my hands, careful of the blister on my left index finger, and went out the back door to find that the outdoor bulb's burned out, leaving me to pick my way down the still-unfamiliar steps in the starry dark, waning moon not yet risen.
I kicked up the stand and turned my bicycle, and there over my house was the big dipper, bright and clear, tipped on end as if it had hung itself neatly from a peg over my bedroom ceiling.
Okay, I thought. I've got a house, I've got friends to help me paint it, I've got this town and this sky and more good fortune than I could ever deserve. I'll sort this all out in the morning.
In the morning. When I get back to the house that is - I know it - going to be home.
All of this activity has been exciting (my house! mine!) right up to the point at which it becomes exhausting and overwhelming. But I'm on a deadline and a budget, so exhaustion and overwhelm don't necessarily mean I get to take a break; I've been over at the house until about 8:30 most nights, and then more often than not I go back over for a few hours after feeding myself and the cats and get back to the rental again between 11:00 and midnight, riding my bike through the dark streets, everything quiet until one of the night trains comes through.
Tonight was another session of dirty work, sticky and mosquito-bitten in the late twilight - this close to solstice it lasts until after ten o'clock - and on into the dark, until finally, frustrated at having so much left to do, I left tools and rags and canisters scattered on the bedroom floor, emptied buckets and rinsed the sponge and washed my hands, careful of the blister on my left index finger, and went out the back door to find that the outdoor bulb's burned out, leaving me to pick my way down the still-unfamiliar steps in the starry dark, waning moon not yet risen.
I kicked up the stand and turned my bicycle, and there over my house was the big dipper, bright and clear, tipped on end as if it had hung itself neatly from a peg over my bedroom ceiling.
Okay, I thought. I've got a house, I've got friends to help me paint it, I've got this town and this sky and more good fortune than I could ever deserve. I'll sort this all out in the morning.
In the morning. When I get back to the house that is - I know it - going to be home.