MUNDANE

There will be several times during the day when I am moved to write about one thing or another. Something happens and I react, simple as that. What would you expect from someone who loves words? The writing allows me to spend time with an idea. In the end, text on a page is no more than a few leafy twigs on the ground after thunder storms have pommeled the trees all night. 

I keep a journal, much of which is spinning wheels and going nowhere. I take it public sometimes in a blog when I think a piece has legs. “Stones” began as a sign post for family and friends who wanted to know where I was and what I was doing. When not on the road it loses momentum, mundane attempts at staying current. There is only so much you can say about yard work and current events before you put people to sleep. Still there’s something contagious about connecting with others who move to the same rhythms as you and you keep reaching out. If I stay on the surface all I get is more of the mundane. It’s not so much writer’s block, just that it takes some effort. I am much better at sharing story than ruminating on ideas that take root in my experience. 

When I moved into the house I live in now, it had a deck in front that had outlived its potential. No amount of linseed oil or sandpaper would bring those splintered old boards back to code. Every spring and fall, I took a hammer and center punch to hail heads that had worked loose, driving them down again into nail holes they had occupied for decades. They came up like weeds, just enough to catch the sole of your shoe. The answer would be to tear the whole thing out and replace it but I am the master of quick fixes. I want things “Good enough” without a lot of unnecessary expense or distraction. So I beat old nails back down into boards that that had lost their grip. 

One day I took a crow bar and hammer to the railing. I realized I was biting off more work than I wanted but it was time. Maybe that’s how birds feel when it’s time to build a new nest. Between beating and prying, sorting bent and rusted 5 inch nails into a coffee can and stacking wood, the old deck gave way to a raw patch of dirt between the flower bed and the front door. Yesterday I was watering flowers in big pots where the flower bed used to be. It’s a concrete patio now; no nails, no splinters. You live, you learn; hopefully we change. I made a rack for my shoes recently, put it inside the wardrobe and I can run the sweeper in the bedroom now.