An Organized State of Disaster

And the rain begins. Today felt very much like the beginning of something long and drawn out.  Odd that inside of the dismal drizzle is the flowering of a new hope. Somehow this fall/winter season seems refreshing, as if the cool air were here to blow the strife away.  Change is in the air as summer releases her fragrant gaze; maybe I can change too, into something harder, stronger, and braver. For the last few days I have been walking about in a bit of a daze, as if now, for some strange reason, I can see glimpses of myself, that usually obscure themselves to me.  I can see down this ladder for the first time in a long time. Pockets of clear between the clouds I can see how far up I have actually climbed. That all these trials, all this work that I really have gotten somewhere, that perhaps the view doesn’t look like I imagined, a bird’s, graceful, beautiful, easy. But I can see a long way when I let myself. And as the cold air sweeps down from the north it will eventually carry with it the clarity of sight, when between the rain clouds, the frigid molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide direct the eye to preserve further onto the horizon than is ever possible in the wavy heat of summer. It feels good to feel proud, at least momentary of all I have achieved. That I am a woman, 32, working for herself, out of a makeshift shop, beside her rental house, woodworking, building, fixing, renovating, making it happen with her own two hands. Even when it scares her, even when it goes wrong, even when she makes mistakes and doesn’t know what to do. Even when she isn’t perfect.  Even though that is the mark she sets herself. Even though perfection can be the clouds that hide the view. But I have climbed this far, with my own two hands and my own two feet. I hope that change will follow through, and clean out some of this old baggage, with me and you, and she and me, and past and present, to be here and now. And so as I battle the rain, as it finds its way into every broken thing, my tarp covered shop, my ancient old truck, my dilapidated shed.  I will try and remember that it is because of the rain that I can see the cracks and fix them.