No, I haven’t gone back to California. I’m sitting in the same spot which I occupied to write yesterday, in Jeanne Foster’s cute kitchen. The ice-cream parlor wrought iron chairs and table stand in a flood of sunshine. Her cat sleeps next to my tablet and a few inches from the back of my laptop. It seems content so I decided to let it be.
Crystalline blue rises from the hillside, accented by the dappled brown of the winter trees. Her house casts a shadow against the glow of the lawn in the morning sunshine. My heart gave a little jump when I saw that the weather would cooperate with my drive to Rocheport to meet my sister Joyce for lunch. A good day. Another beautiful day in paradise.
I got one hard task out of the way yesterday. I stood in front of the pile of stuff in the storage unit. Funny what remains: A couple of chairs; the metal pie-safe that I got when my brother died, which once held linens and potatoes in my mother’s kitchen; a few boxes of God-knows-what; lamps, footstools, blankets, and a bag or two of paperwork inside one of which, I have no doubt, I will find my birth certificate. A pile of stuff 10 feet wide, 10 feet deep, and no more than 4 feet high. Not much, in other words. Less than I imagined.
I’ll start giving things away later this week, when Paula K-V and I visit in earnest on Wednesday afternoon. We’ll have a couple of hours. We’ll take what we can grab. I’ll come back a few more times before I leave. I’ll rummage, I’ll donate, I’ll sort and yes, I’ll grouse a little. But I’ll get it done. At 60 bucks a month, that storage unit will not pay for itself.
A woman named Lynette walked me upstairs at Public Storage to show me the location of my unit. Along the way, we talked about tiny house living. Lynette let loose a trill of laughter. At six-two and two-ten, she would not fit in a tiny house very well, she imagined. But she would like a she-cabin, and she’s asked her fiance to build one in their backyard. I scribbled my name on a paper and suggested she look at my YouTube channel. She got the gate opened for me, and offered to stay if I wanted anything dragged out. I bet I’m a bunch stronger than you, she said. I declined; yesterday was just recon. She nodded, wished me a blessed day, and strolled back to the elevator.
All these random strangers keep blessing me. Eventually, those blessings will manifest. I feel certain of that. I suspect some of them already have.
Later in the evening, I visited my dear friend Katrina, she who fostered our dog. We took a little video of me and the dog for my son. She told me about her upcoming retirement, and i talked a little about my ob search. The irony settled around us unmentioned. I made my way back here before 9:00, tired, content, and convinced of the blissful ordinariness of my tiny life.
It’s the twenty-fifth day of the fiftieth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
