Anne Shirley didn't make it across, probably because either she let the pressure of the dare distract her, or because L.M. Montgomery needed the precocious redhead to wise up and stop exhausting everyone with her hyjinx for a little while, or because the plot needed an exciting event to drive the next chapter.
Anne was trying to walk across the ridgepole of her friend's shed and took a tumble.
The last few days when I've not been working aboard Close Enough, I've been fixing and painting the outside of my house. It costs next to nothing and helps ease that feeling that I'm just backsliding on everything and running the old place into the ground. All my front windows and doors are now filled, sealed and brilliant white instead of looking abandoned.
The most challenging project was to fix up my chimney enclosure. That was a choice between ripping the whole business off and rebuilding- not an option due to money and time constraints- or rehabilitation of what's already there. The problem was that the chimney was finished in something one slight degree more durable than corrugated cardboard. Not very rugged or weatherproof, and boy after 8 or 10 years, the thing looked pretty sorry.
Getting back and forth required climbing up two ladders and traversing the ridge line. At first I crawled and frog-hopped my way across, occasionally being sharply aware of how hot a roof can get on a July afternoon. Since my shoes were much better suited to such contact than my inner thighs, I tried walking across the ridge pole. Gradually it became routine and much more comfortable.
The inner resistance was not actually fear, but entrenched expectations. Fictional redheaded youths are not supposed to walk ridgepoles, much less a 49 year old carrying a bucket of paint, a mortgage and responsibility for 3 kids.
6 months ago I would not have discovered how good my balance is because I was mentally stuck.
Embedded and hence invisible doubts are hard to get past. Unless you're burning your legs on searing hot asphalt, and instead choose to concentrate and enjoy the adventure of the ridgepole walk.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Here I Am
Two days ago, my law degree took me to a different place than I could possibly have foreseen in school. It was a storage area inside the Matinicus Town Office. As many hours as I'd put in at the office, this space was a place I'd never ventured in before.
The building previously served as the island's one room school. I found myself moving old doors, lumber and some broken chair pieces to get at books. Not just any books. Books of about 2 feet by 3 feet containing elegantly handwritten records of property taxes.
My mission was to try and figure out what happened to approximately half the shares in 22 acres of shorefront and beach property here on the island. There is litigation among some of the other owners. Matinicus has three areas where shore and harbor property is owned in shares rather than physical boundaries. These shares have been passed down and subdivided from the original European settlers of the island. Ownership gets convoluted. One parcel is expressed at something like 57/90th's of 250/450th's.
I am uniquely privileged to be using my law degree this way.
Two days later, after some early morning negotiation on a case, I'm standing at the south end of the island, listening to bird gossip, placid surf and the southwest breeze through the grass. Three monarch butterflies stand in the milkweed.
As much hell as I've been through, or put myself and family through, I am recognizing how special my situation is. I had it as a zero sum game in my mind- if I get this out-of-the-box lifestyle, I have to endure financial chaos and suffering. Not so.
Popping the bubble of the zero sum game, the self-limitations, the self-punishment is a good thing. Somewhere along the way, without intending or seeing it at the time, I broke out of the shell. The shell was that of mid level civil servant afraid of my shadow, unable to be myself, weak, unfulfilled. Now I captain a boat, have a fascinating slate of cases and can finally start to deal with the financial piece. I am not unusually intelligent, good looking, rich or courageous. I just am here. I like it.
The building previously served as the island's one room school. I found myself moving old doors, lumber and some broken chair pieces to get at books. Not just any books. Books of about 2 feet by 3 feet containing elegantly handwritten records of property taxes.
My mission was to try and figure out what happened to approximately half the shares in 22 acres of shorefront and beach property here on the island. There is litigation among some of the other owners. Matinicus has three areas where shore and harbor property is owned in shares rather than physical boundaries. These shares have been passed down and subdivided from the original European settlers of the island. Ownership gets convoluted. One parcel is expressed at something like 57/90th's of 250/450th's.
I am uniquely privileged to be using my law degree this way.
Two days later, after some early morning negotiation on a case, I'm standing at the south end of the island, listening to bird gossip, placid surf and the southwest breeze through the grass. Three monarch butterflies stand in the milkweed.
As much hell as I've been through, or put myself and family through, I am recognizing how special my situation is. I had it as a zero sum game in my mind- if I get this out-of-the-box lifestyle, I have to endure financial chaos and suffering. Not so.
Popping the bubble of the zero sum game, the self-limitations, the self-punishment is a good thing. Somewhere along the way, without intending or seeing it at the time, I broke out of the shell. The shell was that of mid level civil servant afraid of my shadow, unable to be myself, weak, unfulfilled. Now I captain a boat, have a fascinating slate of cases and can finally start to deal with the financial piece. I am not unusually intelligent, good looking, rich or courageous. I just am here. I like it.
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