There was a rainstorm last week; it was so brief that it hardly lasted enough to quench the thirst of trees and landscapes so desperate for precipitation. Even so, the lightness of its pitter-patter and the joy in the damp had me springing for my camera, anxious to capture anything and everything I could that blossomed and bloomed. The house adjacent to ours had been put up for sale recently. One survey of the newly cleaned-up yard and some lovely lavender petals and I was on my way. I dashed across the road in my bare feet, the eagerness of childhood and the helter-skelter happiness of droplets splashing my face made me feel alive and willful. Silly even. Yet enough adult to look around to spy any neighbor who might see a ridiculous woman skipping down the street sans shoes.
I think of those blossoms, of the steps they grace and the state of the property as it had been before. I remember my surprise when a few months ago, cleaning vans arrived en masse in front of the house, the garage door decimated, and a giant dumpster overtook the driveway as men were seen going in and out, hauling boxes and apparently clearing out what obviously had been a place of such squalor it required them to wear masks. It made me feel as much curious as it did sick to my stomach.
Directly across from our home sits a property hidden by shrubs and a thicket of trees. It has been abandoned and empty for the last few years. Except for a few deer using it as an escape-way to safety (after feeding off of the plum tree at the end of our driveway), I've quite imagined it with the same forbidding fascination as Francis Hodgson Burnett's Mary when she chanced upon the Secret Garden. I've never ventured over, and save for a lone older gentleman who would drive up occasionally to view its condition, I have not gleaned anything further. This home as well, has recently been put up for sale. It, however, is advertised "as-is," no improvements made. The photos listed on a real estate site show a state of total disrepair, entirely forsaken - dejected, dismal walls forlornly staring down over heavily stained carpeting woefully in need of replacement.
I think of our home; I think of how much it has changed within the last few years. I think of losing the lawn and the absolute will-power it has been in reviving the front grass and the tenderness of care I feel it deserves to keep it beautiful and inviting. It has been my own ensign of hope, perseverance and a statement of intent within the difficulty. I think of how it has been - living in a state of unknowing for both of us as each of us have also dealt with physical issues (his more excruciating than mine - neck surgery - certainly nothing to be trifled with). I think of our no-holds-barred effort to reclaim the future and just "do it": To plant a garden, tend to living things; and in so doing, offer it, too, as a statement and proclamation of our own viability.
And then I think of restoration. And I think of what it entails: gratitude, care, belief, hope, action and the dogged pursuit of believing in and going after more. In that order. I believe that when any of us have been taken down by circumstances of heartbreak or hardship, these offer invitations to reexamine our worth, perspective, compassion, allowance, forgiveness, healing, wants, goals and attainment. In that order. And while there is always a danger of allowing distress and condition opportunity to be used as pseudo-blankets of safety - to wrap up self, heart and soul against the possibilities of further heartbreak, change, or fear - we don't have to. We can choose.
We can choose Restoration.
I watch people come and go out of both those homes. I wonder if they even pause to appreciate each structure the way I see them: The first, renovated entirely and standing tall with absolutely no evidence of what it had been before, waiting for the gift of a loving family to fill its walls with commitment and happiness. As for the lonely frame across the street, I wonder if it will be seized with the same power of purpose and morph into the glory it once must have known. Or I wonder if it will be bought and refurbished just enough to rent out to those of ilk who might just keep it in little more than stasis, underscoring its despondent condition.
And then I think of our own home. I think of the excited voices and boisterous laughter that rang out this morning when every single child but for the oldest boy, joined James and me in a game of fantasy, elves, arrows, goblins and imagination. I think of how this will most definitely become a Sunday staple of family fun added to the variety of other things we do in gratitude, care, belief, hope, action and the dogged pursuit of believing in and going after more. In that order. While circumstances have kept us sometimes wishing, I'm humbled to see our own restoration come in, miracles at a time.
I believe. I believe in restoration with a surety of my soul. I believe that every person, every condition, every circumstance, every structure, and every interaction has the ability to not only pass, but entirely become. More. A more that cannot be fathomed but for the belief and pursuit of it. In joy. In faith. In hope. I believe that those invitations to reexamine our worth, perspective, compassion, allowance, forgiveness, healing, wants, goals and attainment - in that order - provide for sustenance that stands for all time. In Joy. In Happiness. And in a never ceasing delight in things as they are as much as the anticipation of things as they can and will be. Contentment.
I say, Repaint Life.
- This Carman Girl
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