The missing piece

I've been doing December for a while now. We're past the half-way mark, past the solstice and really in the home stretch now. Just a few days left to go. Of course, it's been feeling interminable. Over the weekend, I got out a jigsaw puzzle and started putting it together. There is something very calming about jigsaw puzzles.

I'm sure someone has written their master's thesis about their neurologic effect. To me it seems obvious enough why they are satisfying: the visual skills that we honed through generations of gathering food, (seeking out shapes and colours that we recognized as "mushroom", "berry", "plant with tuber below", etc.), still enjoy hunting through the pieces for the shapes and colours that create a recognizable image.

A little 500-piece puzzle; one of many that I won at a penny auction
at the West Dublin Hall (several years ago now). 

I find jigsawing meditative. I can get into a Zen state where all I am thinking about are the colours and shapes. It's all about the edges – the shifts in colour within the design and the shapes of the pieces themselves. 

However, I don't always get synced up and become one with the puzzle. Jigsawing can also lead to rumination. And rumination is a double-edged deal. It can be dark and it can be light. I can think about things that take me to a place of grief or anger or disappointment; I can think about things that take me to a place of joy and uplift and excitement. And, as my therapist spent many hours trying to teach me back in the day, at its best, it's not either/or, it's AND. 

Thinking about gladsome tidings does not wipe out pain. And thinking about grief doesn't have to erase joy. Of course, holding both at the same time is not easy. Although human beings are capable of believing many contradictory things at the same time, we also have a tendency to pick one side of a dichotomy and stay there. 

I was on the dark side of December for a good few days this month. And I'm afraid that jaunty little jigsaw puzzle sent me spiralling further down. 

Until I remembered that the antidote for disconnection is gratitude. I sat down and wrote a list of all of the people I feel thankful for. People who taught me things (even hard things), people who helped or guided me, people who gave me gifts this year – gifts of connection and belonging, gifts of being seen, heard and accepted, moments, presence. 

There were 75 people on my list. And although I am still feeling sad and I am still wishing December was over, I am also holding that I am a very fortunate person to have so many people and moments to be grateful for — and to know it. 

It's both.

It's all. 

(And December is almost over. THANKS BE!) 

Construction: Weeks 4 and 5

BIG Weeks!

Weeks 4 and 5 were two major weeks. I was too overwhelmed and busy during and between them to write a blog post, so am putting both weeks together in one post now (at the beginning of Week 6). 

Somewhere in the middle of it all, Salinger and I reluctantly moved house, back into our winter digs in Lunenburg. While we are incredibly lucky to have these friendly and comfortable accommodations available to us for the third winter in a row, it was still a bad wrench to leave The Crooked Woods. But my little tiny house was getting chilly and starting to have problems with moisture and condensation and it was time to head for central heating.

Week 4

Week 4 was SLAB WEEK! This was one of the most nerve-wracking stages of the build so far. Pouring concrete is something you want to get right the first time. Second chances at a pour are virtually impossible. Also, if the cement truck can't access the site, there's a big financial penalty and then more work to do to make the site accessible. 

Fortunately, the cement truck was able to get back to the form on its first attempt, thanks to my amazing friend who widened out the driveway and cut a low limb off the big maple during Week 1.

Distributing the cement to the rear section of the form is heavy work, done by wheelbarrow. The work speeds up once the concrete can be poured directly from the truck's chute into the form.

All poured, partly trowelled

Power-trowelling!

The finished slab. I love the marbled look it has. 

The slab needed to be kept wet for three days to discourage cracks from forming. My rain barrel, a bunch of bed sheets and a big tarp helped with this task. Salinger putting his fluffy backside on the wet sheets was probably counter-productive, but very, very cute.

The ever-deepening chill was a big factor in deciding that it was time to move out to my friend's house in Lunenburg. Here is the radiant heater running full blast in the tiny house while I tried to get some desk work done in the early morning on one of my last days living on site...

The sub-contractors who worked on the slab were fantastic to have on site, continuing my lucky streak of skilled and friendly people working on this project.

Week 5

With the slab poured and set and inspected, the framing could begin. There was a risk of rain on Monday, so the work began on Tuesday, and holy cats, did it ever go quickly with four people on the crew and four days of gorgeous fall weather!!! 

Day 1 of framing

Detail, Day 2

End of day 2!

I was stuck in Lunenburg doing desk work on Day 1, but managed to get to the site to spend the morning on Day 2 and then stopped in for quick visits on Day 3 and again on Day 4. 

I was delighted on Day 2 to watch how the four-person crew functions as a well-oiled machine. Everyone had their tasks to meet the inter-locking requirements of the build. Boards needed to be selected and cut and placed and secured and I found it a graceful, intricate dance to watch. And I love the energy with which the crew works – music on the radio, banter back and forth, questions and answers – it all seems to flow with ease and enthusiasm. 

The best contribution I could make was to stay out of the way! So, I turned my hand to sorting out a bunch of paperwork to do with the build and making sure that all of the permits and plans would be readily accessible when I wasn't there. 

I had an unsettling feeling on Day 2. I walked around inside the framed space and was filled with a sense of panic – "It is TOO small!" I thought. "What have I done? What am I doing? I'm having something built that I'm going to HATE living in. Oh NO!!!!!"

Day 2, side view

But then, weirdly, when I came back at the end of Day 3 and two of the walls were sheathed with OSB, enclosing the building somewhat, it felt larger, rather than smaller. I felt perfectly comfortable, and thought "Oh, yes, this is exactly what I thought it would be like; this is plenty of room!"

And when I came back on Day 4, when all four walls were closed in to a height of 8 feet, the space felt even bigger and more comfortable. 

I can't decide if my brain just needed to adjust from my imagination to reality, from 2-dimensional plans to 3-dimensional space, or if there was some kind of cognitive block in my brain that meant I couldn't accurately gauge the volume of space when it was outlined without being enclosed. In either case, it was strange and unsettling, and I'm glad it passed. This project is way too major to have to live with discontent or disappointment about it!

Of course, I am curious to see how it feels once the walls are closed all the way in and the roof is on, as that will make a change yet again, I'm sure. 

Day 4

I got more chances to spend time on the building site over the weekend, because some friends invited me to stay in their nearby house while they were away camping.

Interior space taking shape – I love that high window. The small opening lower down on the left is for my firewood pass-through. 

Light and shadow at my back doorway.

The view from my back door. 

I had a moment, sitting in the back doorway when I could feel what it's going to be like to live in my house, with a deck or even a little screened-in porch to the south, and maybe even a deck on the east side, as well. I foresee a lot of coziness and peace and quiet, safety and comfort, protected and blessed by these trees.

I have been yearning for a home of my own for a long time. I feel very lucky and humbled and I am deeply, deeply grateful to all of the people and circumstances that are making this possible. 

Mindfulness and Meteor Showers

Every year I get excited about the Perseids meteor shower – and then it's overcast or there's a full moon or I forget about it or I can't be bothered to get up in the middle of the night and go look.

This year, it felt important to me not to miss them. I read that while they peak around August 11–12, the light from the waxing moon may interfere with viewing this year. So I decided to make some time to view them before their official peak.

Tucked away in the woods, my view of the sky is somewhat limited, so I asked a friend who has a glorious hill behind her house if she would mind if I drove up to the top in the early morning to do some star-gazing. She gladly welcomed me to share her skyscape.

Staying up late is not my preference, so instead, I got up early.

I drove in the dark up the dirt road leading to her hilltop, the long grass in the middle of the road pinging against the bottom of my car. At the top, it was brisk, but not too brisk. Breezy, but not too breezy. Extremely clear. I was on the late edge for viewing (after 4am, with the sun already starting to lighten the east), but the moon had set and most of the sky was still very dark. I saw seven meteors in about 20 minutes, with the two brightest just before I left to come back home and start working.

As I stood there (I had forgotten to bring a blanket to lie down on), I thought about how magical it is to watch shooting stars. Calm, with happy surprises.

Calm can be a tricky place. It can be easy to slip from calm into the stories we tell ourselves to keep our brains busy. I don't know about you, but some of the narratives I spin about my life are not very pleasant ones. A few times while I was star gazing this morning, my mind drifted off to think about difficult things: work and personal relationships that are troubling me, the book that I'm reading about trauma (The Body Keeps the Score) that is stirring up many upsetting feelings. Each time my mind strayed – Whoosh – shooting star! And each time, I felt a surprised and delighted smile sweep my face, hustling my anxious, hamster-wheel thoughts out of the spotlight.

It strikes me that "calm with happy surprises" might be the optimal state for human life.

Calm without any surprises is boring. From there we often slip into old scripts: catastrophes, anxieties, dramas, anything to make things interesting and give us an illusion of control. Never calm, (i.e. continually stressed) is a brutal way to live. And mostly calm with unhappy surprises, with that slammed from out-of-the-blue feeling, is definitely not optimal.

I have a lot of calm in my life right now. I need it and I'm grateful for it.

I'm reminded this morning to seek out and appreciate happy surprises too.

I had one last Friday, when some friends dropped by and invited me to join them for supper and a few hands of gin rummy.

And come to think of it, I had another happy surprise a few weeks ago, when some friends were home for a visit and spent an evening reminding me how to play Slay the Demon – a game I find deeply meditative and sweetly surprising. And of course, some visits with my favourite young people this summer have been spontaneous and full of in-the-moment sandcastle-building and wave-jumping. And some heart-to-hearts with friends have taken me to that same "brain-lit-up-in-connection" good place.

Waves are happy surprises. So are smiles and hugs. So are friends dropping by. So is dancing. So is breaking out into song. So is the High-5 burger at the Hebbville Tastee Freeze.

I'm reminded to cultivate and/or appreciate happy surprise interruptions to my long hours of work and the dark thoughts that sometimes take over my mind while my hands are busy typesetting.

When you wish upon a star...