I know it’s a title to a new movie in theatres now (check your local listings for show times near you), but it’s also the appropriate way of describing what feels like my life right now.
The power was still off yesterday around 4:30pm when Jon and I finally walked through the door having chosen wood trim, door, stain color, door knob, primer, paint color, paint supplies and I finally sat down on the couch and cried. I don’t know how I’m going to do all this all the time all at once.
We’re moving to New Jersey in August, I leave for Germany on Sunday (first gotta drive to Chicago since i got a cheaper ticket out of that airport), a huge storm with 115 mph winds came through on Tuesday night shredding our siding, busting up our roof, breaking one of our windows (not all the way through, thankfully) and knocking out the power from 1am Wednesday to 6:30pm Thursday night. We’re still on a water boiling ordinance but that will lift soon, I imagine.
We have claims agents working on our two cars parked out in the storm, the claims agent for our house, plus the home improvement project remodelling the basement we started before we had plans to move. The drywallers hung drywall yesterday, Eric hauled the dump trailer off full of the first round of thinning when thinking of what won’t get packed. Meanwhile the water was on the cookstove in the driveway boiling for the French Press and the contents of the fridge on ice in a cooler on the kitchen floor.
Who wouldn’t cry on the verge of a big trip searching for her passport she swore she put right there, but it’s not there anymore? What tears wouldn’t flow when, upon looking around, everything in eyesight is either under construction, mid- demolition and commencing transition all at once all the time?
Everything is happening whether you see or you don’t. The devoted mother dies too early of cancer days before her daughter’s wedding they bumped up to June so Mom could be there. A storm rips through a small town and the fields that were green and growing yesterday are torn and tattered at sun up and the world keeps on spinning but with plywood over window panes shattered from the hail. Everything is good all the time, everything is heartbreaking all the time, everything is helloing and goodbyeing and disappearing without a word and without warning. Just because it’s not your turn doesn’t mean it’s not there. Someone somewhere is taking first breaths while someone somewhere is taking their last. Don’t forget.
Everywhere. This house, this yard, this basement, this light switch, this. garage full of stuff we hauled up to rip out carpet and walls and now new walls are coming any day any day. This hotel, this passport, this guitar, this phone call, this street, this dirt work and concrete steps we still have to fix. This arm, this right arm, this right arm getting tattooed today to stamp it with ink to say, “The old is passed, the new has come.” This town, this church, this community, this kitchen and living room and all the things that proved insignificant and useless once life boiled down to potable water, ice and propane. Jon boiled eggs and grilled us toast and we sat right here like we always do. I cooked spaghetti in the driveway and we ate side by side in lawn chairs in the shade.
I called the church office in New Jersey where we’re moving and I talked to Kim who was so friendly and asked her what our new mailing address would be. I texted my sons to ask them how they were doing and only one ever responded so I’ll take that as good news. I drove to the library to use their free Wifi and just checked with the hairdresser to see if I could get in. I. booked my hotel room, I made plans for going, I dropped off the camera at the building where the AC unit flew off the roof and landed smack in the drive- like one of those scenes from a movie made in the 80s depicting house parties with TP in the trees and a sofa on the lawn (Weird Science).
I held hands with my husband, I cried at the table, I got scared I can’t do this all at once all the time. I had replanted hollyhock and found that one was still living even after the storm front, even after all that. After finding the dead birds, after raking the yard up, gathering branches and crying it out, the hollyhock was still upright, right where I put it, drinking in sunlight and thirsty for rain.