The beat of a different drum
If you can fog a mirror, then you are hearing a lot of negative press these days, and it is infesting your brain. Two years ago, we were maintaining our houses the same way we are doing it now, only a little more joyously. Yesterday, when Rudy stopped by to tell me more about the termite treatment I need and the boards that I need replaced and the flashing that should have been put in over the openings of the screen porch, I stared at him dumbly.
In the past days, I’ve had more friends complaining about their house woes – the maintenance that they can’t afford – the worry that it will never end. Well guess what? It never ends. When you live in a harsh climate like New Orleans, you must keep up as if it were your life boat that needed sanding and polishing and oiling and sails mending on a continuous basis. You didn’t sign up for this – think again. You did.
Most of my friends wish they hadn’t bought a house now, wish they were living in an apartment, it’s such a strange string of conversations that I’m almost starting to think they are all absurd. Every one of my friends lives in beautiful houses, houses they have converted to homes, and yet, now they regret and fear the future in those homes. Hey, I’m one of them for goodness sakes, my LaLa, the ark that I have been building and fixing and maintaining suddenly turned on me one day like a snake that came out of nowhere. I got up one day and said enough of this, I’m done.
But now what was the next thing that came to mind – now what. So we started thinking about the now what and things started gelling and opening up and we saw a way that this could all work if we tweaked this and did that and suddenly looking into the future didn’t appear as rough seas as we had imagined. Actually it almost seemed like clear sailing but we aren’t going to give into that illusion too readily.
The mind is a terrible thing to have when it is hard wired into popular sentiment – when everyone is up, you do foolish things, when everyone is down, you want to kill yourself. Sometimes it is far better to be a contrarian and march to a different drum, but it takes measures – screens, smokes and mirrors – and it takes a creative mind to imagine your life differently than the status quo or convention. You either approach it as liberating or scary as hell – but I am going to advocate for being the outlier – I think you can always win at a game you invent.