Life is Messy
Hugh Mackay said: "Nothing is perfect. Life is messy." I've always liked that quote because it is one of the greatest truths of all time. It pretty much sums it all up.
When someone asks where you've been, you can either tell them in varying degrees of detail or simply shrug, but the bottom line: life is messy.
There's another quote: Man makes plans . . . and God laughs. It's been attributed to various people including Michael Chabon, but it may also be an old Yiddish proverb.
I can relate to that on a minute-by-minute level. It doesn't matter what I plan, what I end up doing is completely different. Now part of that has to do with having a life partnership. I plan, Kathy has other plans.
Right now I'm living in a situation that's complicated by having a grandson in an alternative high school situation. Another grandson has a serious illness. Sometimes the first grandson needs to get to school at the same time his brother needs to be at a clinic or hospital fifty miles away. We have one car right now. Fortunately, I am usually able to borrow Patrick's car, but it's a little weird driving someone else's vehicle. Cars are kind of like memory foam--they become molded to their driver.
I have so much that I need to do. Sometimes I procrastinate--okay often I procrastinate--but even when I get busy doing things I'm always called away by something else. The front deck has needed to be sealed since we moved here. We've bought Thompson's Water Seal twice and it got ruined by freezing temperatures in the tool shed. I mean, we bought Thompson's Water Seal in early spring and it got ruined in the dead of winter. Because man plans . . . .
There are a dozen bags of leaves sitting next to the shredder and another hundred bags or so still on the ground. I would say I'll get around to it, but will I? Probably, just not on my timetable.
Planting the garden is time-critical, even if I don't plant by the moon (which I don't because that would really complicate my life). That gets done no matter what, although sometimes I have to scale back on my overly ambitious garden plans. When I was a kid, my dad did the early planting on specific dates no matter what. I remember being out after dark in a cold drizzle planting potatoes and onions by the headlights of the tractor while my dad walked ahead pushing a hand plow. My fingers got so cold and numb--it was miserable then, but it's a warm memory now. Farming is like that. I had to feed the cows, chickens and pigs and split and haul firewood to the wood boxes no matter what the weather was like outside.
Come to think of it, my dad was pretty good at planning and following through on everything. We managed to go fishing every evening; we never missed morel season; and there were always plenty of logs on the woodpile for me to split. My dad was a stubborn man. He didn't let the messiness of life get in his way. I, on the other hand . . . .
Life is messy, God laughs, but around here there is joy in chaos. Kathy always says "there's a lot of life in this house." Yep. And life is messy.
Stephen P.
When someone asks where you've been, you can either tell them in varying degrees of detail or simply shrug, but the bottom line: life is messy.
There's another quote: Man makes plans . . . and God laughs. It's been attributed to various people including Michael Chabon, but it may also be an old Yiddish proverb.
I can relate to that on a minute-by-minute level. It doesn't matter what I plan, what I end up doing is completely different. Now part of that has to do with having a life partnership. I plan, Kathy has other plans.
Right now I'm living in a situation that's complicated by having a grandson in an alternative high school situation. Another grandson has a serious illness. Sometimes the first grandson needs to get to school at the same time his brother needs to be at a clinic or hospital fifty miles away. We have one car right now. Fortunately, I am usually able to borrow Patrick's car, but it's a little weird driving someone else's vehicle. Cars are kind of like memory foam--they become molded to their driver.
I have so much that I need to do. Sometimes I procrastinate--okay often I procrastinate--but even when I get busy doing things I'm always called away by something else. The front deck has needed to be sealed since we moved here. We've bought Thompson's Water Seal twice and it got ruined by freezing temperatures in the tool shed. I mean, we bought Thompson's Water Seal in early spring and it got ruined in the dead of winter. Because man plans . . . .
There are a dozen bags of leaves sitting next to the shredder and another hundred bags or so still on the ground. I would say I'll get around to it, but will I? Probably, just not on my timetable.
Planting the garden is time-critical, even if I don't plant by the moon (which I don't because that would really complicate my life). That gets done no matter what, although sometimes I have to scale back on my overly ambitious garden plans. When I was a kid, my dad did the early planting on specific dates no matter what. I remember being out after dark in a cold drizzle planting potatoes and onions by the headlights of the tractor while my dad walked ahead pushing a hand plow. My fingers got so cold and numb--it was miserable then, but it's a warm memory now. Farming is like that. I had to feed the cows, chickens and pigs and split and haul firewood to the wood boxes no matter what the weather was like outside.
Come to think of it, my dad was pretty good at planning and following through on everything. We managed to go fishing every evening; we never missed morel season; and there were always plenty of logs on the woodpile for me to split. My dad was a stubborn man. He didn't let the messiness of life get in his way. I, on the other hand . . . .
Life is messy, God laughs, but around here there is joy in chaos. Kathy always says "there's a lot of life in this house." Yep. And life is messy.
Stephen P.
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