Hammer and A Nail
Today I am filled with a yearning. A sort of mellow sadness. A tightness around my heart.
Last night I slept a deep, delicious sleep. But in this deep relaxation a dream came to me—a dream which won’t let me go.
It is a dream I have had before. I am fixing up a new house, a house I bought in a burst of enthusiasm full of hope and expectations. It was so much bigger than my old one—so beautiful and spacious. But now I stand in all the construction rubble and I don’t know why I left my old one. This house that held the promise of being more is a disaster. Rotting plaster, rooms that seem so suddenly small, an old kitchen and bathrooms that barely work. It is dark an chaotic and smells musty. I miss my old house, cheery and warm. I am angry that I sold it—that I let it go. I want it back. I don’t know why I paid so dearly for this mess of a house, this house I only sort of want now, this house that seems like it will never rise to my expectations. I wake up with the taste of a longing in my mouth. I can’t shake it.
I have this dream only when I am at peace. It is though, only in these quiet and happy moments when my heart is most relaxed that I can face the truth. I am in the middle of soul renovations and I am feeling a bit restless and regretful, wondering why I started on this project--why I dare to look within.
My heart, my life—it is being reconstructed after the hurricane that was my failed marriage destroyed the place where my heart last dwell. The blueprints laid out are ambitious plans—plans that hold promise of space and beauty, but seem so far from completion. I am tired of construction that never ends. I am impatient. I am questioning this new dream of a house—the wisdom of it all. I want my old one back. Sure it was too small. But it was comfortable. It was home.
I have sat with this dream all morning, all afternoon as the children catch frogs and feed ducks. As I pack up our cabin to ready ourselves to leave tomorrow. As I run errands and watch the wind blow through the pines and whip up waves on the lake. I don’t know what to do to shake it and so I don’t. I sit with it until I am at last ready to let it blow away in the Maine breeze, the comfort that I can recognize what is going on in my heart at last what allows it to fade.
