Day 7: Finishing the Porch and Step Unit (Almost)

I wake up shortly after the sun rises, have a cup of coffee, and head outside to finish my little porch/step unit. I remove the decking I laid on top the night before, mark the corners, then pull the unit away from the trailer so I can get to work leveling the ground under the frame.

I have no idea where my shovel is. I have no idea where any of my yard tools are, in fact. I thought I packed them up, and brought them with me when I moved to California two years ago. I don't remember giving them to anyone, or leaving them anywhere. But they weren't in the stuff my sister graciously let me store in her garage, and, for the life of me, I have absolutely no idea what happened to them.

This is true of a number of other things I thought I'd packed and brought with me. My fondue pot, for example. I have all the forks and think, surely, I wouldn't have kept the forks and not the pot itself. But, again, it isn't in any of the stuff I had in storage. Neither is the huge aluminum stock pot in which the mountains of summer tomatoes I've grown over the years have been turned into equally huge batches of putanesca, and the twenty some pounds of potatoes it's routinely taken to meet the demands of my five boys at Thanksgiving have been boiled and mashed. I can't find either of the dishracks I had when I left Portland. My crock pot, chemex coffee maker, and all my cookie sheets likewise seem to have disappeared.

It's all either yard stuff or kitchen stuff, so you'd think that maybe I just missed a couple of boxes that got inadvertently moved/stuck in a corner of my sister's garage at some point. But think again. All of this stuff is really big. Not the kind of stuff you'd really be able to pack in a box at all. So where'd it go?

Like every other time I've noticed, or been reminded that I'm missing something I'm pretty sure I packed and brought with me when I moved, I start obsessing on trying to think of where all this stuff could be. I am doing this, today, while simultaneously trying to think of what I can use to level the ground instead of the shovel I apparently no longer have.

I poke at the soil that I need to move. Not that hard. Really soft actually. Mostly just fine grain dust blown in from the surrounding desert by the wind. A couple of really pretty rocks. A lot of broken glass. A lot of nails, screws, nuts, washers, bolts, and other construction debris.

I put the rocks in the pot that holds my pomegranate. Usable hardware goes in the bucket I have for that purpose. The glass and other trash goes in the garbage.

I've decided I can probably just use a short length of 2x4 to get the level surface I need, and go to work moving dirt first this way, then that way, and checking my progress with a level. Two hours later the whole area front to back, side to side, and corner to corner is level and smooth.

Because the ground is so soft - and the wind blows so hard sometimes - I decide I should probably scavenge the park for four concrete paving squares so I don't find myself having to do this particular job at any point in the near and foreseeable future.

It makes for a nice break. Walking the park like this is a lot like beach-combing. It has the same rambling, zen-like feel as well as thrill of discovery when you stumble upon something that catches your eye. I always seem to find pennies no matter where I go. I found a medal bearing the legend "High Desert League" once. I'm currently on the look out for these 1" square tiles that seem to get brought to the surface every time we have a really big wind in the hope that I'll eventually find enough of them to actually tile something.

As a result of my wanderings, I know exactly where to find the pavers I need. Takes about ten minutes, and I find three more pennies in the process, but no little tiles. Oh, well. Maybe next time.

The pavers go in. I check and work them a bit until they all register level, then stand inside the frame of my porch/step unit so I can lift it into place and secure, with screws, to my trailer itself.

I am in process of siding the unit when I realize I am running out of screws. I do a quick calculation. At the rate I'm using them, I'll have just enough to finish the siding, but not enough to put in the decking on either the porch or the stairs.

It's the middle of the afternoon. The temperature hit 95 a couple of hours back. I'm sweating, dirty, and could definitely use a little break from the heat. I tell myself I'll just finish the siding first. I don't realize how long this will actually take. Three hours later, I get the last plank secured. I have two screws left. I haven't eaten. I'm dehydrated. My eyes hurt. My hands hurt. My skin hurts.

I clean up my work area and put away my tools. I wash my face, change my clothes, grab my purse, and head into town to cruise the air-conditioned aisles of the local hardware store for the screws I need to actually finish my porch/steps. I have a snack wrap and iced coffee at McDonald's. Check my email. Check my Facebook page. Check in with my sister and a couple of friends who have written wondering how I am and how it's going.

As I head home, I decide I really don't want to work anymore today. What I really want to do is just sit, maybe read a little, maybe knit, maybe listen to a couple of the podcasts I downloaded while I had access to the internet at McDonald's, maybe just walk the park and look for some more of those little tiles.

So that's what I do. Because I can. Because there's no one here who has any expectations of me other than myself. There's no one here to disappoint or upset or anger. There's no one here to make me feel like I'm being self indulgent, lazy, and irresponsible. There's just me.

There was a time when I was absolutely terrified by the idea of there being no one but me to think, care, and worry about. No one with whom to fundamentally relate, identify, and give me/my life any sense of meaning, purpose, value, and importance. No one but me to define the things I believed, felt, thought, said, did, needed, and wanted.

To all of those people who walked by my side, talked to me, and held my hand when I very suddenly and very unexpectedly found myself in that position and was so very, very afraid for so very, very long - I just want to say - it took me a while, but you were right - I have found all of those things for myself in myself, and there just being me is, at last, ever so much more than enough.