The Unusual Occupant

The view outside my office window is of a small residential road that passes to the west of our building. Across the street there is a small brown two-story home with a two-stall garage.

Today there are tiny wisps of snow flying. The wind can’t seem to make up its mind and the tiny flakes fly helter-skelter in the air. Not being from Michigan originally, snow mesmerizes me. I can watch it for hours and be awed by the wonder of it.

Ever since I was a young girl I have this game I play. As a child I would look out the window (particularly at night) and see the lights on through the windows of other homes on our block. The amber glow through the curtain always intrigued me. I would create a story about the people who lived behind those curtains. Those stories filled my evenings and took me far away from the hell that was my childhood. As an adult, the need for those stories to take me away from reality has diminished but the desire to create them has not. So, back to the small house…

I watch the people who occupy that small brown house, come and go. Their choice of exterior décor is funny to me…a large and very weather-worn checkered flag is nailed over a broken window. On it is emblazoned the NASCAR logo. Old Glory makes an odd counterpoint on the opposite end of the house covering another broken window. In a corner where the breezeway meets the house itself, is an ever-changing pile of stuff. The odds and ends that occupy this little space are in a constant state of flux. There are all kinds of children’s toys, an old dishwasher, a rusty charcoal grill and assorted other items. I swear the toys change from day to day. I don’t know if someone comes in the night and raids the little pile. Maybe they take what they need and leave what they’ve got. I’m not sure. Yesterday there was a little kiddy pool but today the pool is gone and has been replaced by what looks like a large plastic see-saw.

The pile notwithstanding, there has also been a parade of different cars for sale. Today’s occupant is a late 70’s model Lincoln Continental. Big, brown, and ugly, it stands sentinel beside the garage with a dilapidated For Sale sign in the windshield. The corner boasts a Sea Doo for sale, with its own trailer. Although one of the trailer tires is flat, the Sea Doo looks to be in great shape.

The story I’ve created to go with the brown house isn’t anything anyone else wouldn’t assume. But just the other day I was surprised in such a way that the story has completely changed and my method of putting those stories together has been forever altered.

A white truck backed into the drive. To the truck was attached a covered trailer. It could have contained landscaping equipment, but it seemed too nice a trailer for that. Maybe there was a motorcycle in it, but the house and the story I had in my head about its occupants, didn’t seem nice enough for that. The man who climbed out of the truck once it had stopped fit my story on the house perfectly. John Deere hat perched atop a scruffy pate and worn jeans over work boots were the perfect compliment to a NASCAR jacket boasting a huge number 8. He met and shook hands with a gentleman who’d come out of the brown house. Brown-house guy was attired similarly but wearing a flannel plaid jacket, and neither of them noticed me or my snooping. The two men exchanged some idle chatter and while NASCAR jacket butted his cigarette they approached the garage.

The garage door slowly trundled open and, much to my surprise, revealed a strikingly clean and surprisingly empty space. NASCAR pulled down the ramp on the trailer, opened the double doors and began to undo latches and straps. He pulled gently and as I watched what he removed from the trailer I thought to myself, “That’ll learn me to make assumptions!”

It was an airplane. The wings seemed to fold up or back. I can’t really tell how they folded it up to fit in that trailer. The propeller had been removed and so had the tail section.

Amazingly, these to rough, grizzly guys had flown this plane some time recently and now it was time to put away their toy. They carefully guided it out of the trailer along with all its miscellaneous and disconnected parts and pieces. The disassembled airplane fit perfectly in the garage. I could tell that there were hooks and anchors put in that garage specifically for that airplane. The guys were careful about attaching straps and tightening things to secure their aircraft. It seemed so out of place, that little white plane and its unlikely pilots. I watched in awe as they put everything in its place and then pulled down the door and locked it.

It seemed so unlikely a thing to be in that garage and I knew that in a millennium I never would have guessed, based on the story in my head, that there was an airplane in that garage. I guess it goes to show you never can tell.

Tuesday Morning Musings

No one makes much of a fuss about January 2nd. All of the "Year in Review" stuff happens all day on January 1st and everyone pretty much jumps on that band wagon. Well...I have a confession to make. That band wagon takes off each year with all the sincerity its passengers can muster and it's always light one Puerto Rican tush!

Honestly, I'm too busy reading or watching about everyone else's recollections of the year that I don't take too much time to consider my own musings of the past year. So today (because Spiffy suggested I "write, write, write") I'll take my own version of the jog down memory lane.

I turned 40 this year. I milestone I met head on and with feeling! I cut my very long hair, very very short and dyed it blue and black. I pierced my bellybutton and got a great tattoo and then I paused.

I am, by trade, a realtor and mortgage broker. It was pretty hard to continue being taken seriously by my middle-aged, mid-western clientele having navy blue hair, and so...the hair went back to just black and I quit with the short, belly-exposing shirts and tried to conform to being middle-aged too! Often I could be seen sitting alone in my car stifling cries of, "I object!!!" The objection was to how quickly 40 creeps up on you and kicks you in the arse, HARD.

All the complaining subsided to find me glad to be comfortable in my own skin. I can look at myself in the mirror and say, "Hmmm...not bad for an old broad." I was over the angst that riddled my 20's and the "busy" years of my 30's. Forty found me hitting my stride. My life has a comfortable rhythm for which I am grateful. The blue hair was just a hiccough, I think.

So with most of the anguish generated by the big 4-0 out of my system, life carried on as usual. I had a new EX boyfriend and a new house. Dating was exciting (for about 5 minutes) and I felt as if 2006 was loaded with possibility. The year crept on and life passed by; work, home, work, home; and the occassional blind date. Some of those dates beg a post entirely their own!

As the days ticked past, the possibility of possibility seemed less...well...possible. My real estate career waxed and waned (mostly waned) and a couple of investments went in the toilet.

So here I am in January of 2007, looking back at a year that was, at best, uneventful and looking forward again with hope and expectation. A new boyfriend, a new bathroom in the new, old house and lots of new projects to begin and finish in my new/old house seem to jam me back in to the possibility frame of mind!

Here's to a better year this time around, and if that doesn't work out...well there's always '08!!!

Second Chances...

A loud rapping at the door awoke me from a deep dreamy sleep. It was early, too early to be awake, and certainly too early to be out in the streets pounding on doors. I thought that there must be some emergency in town and ran to the door to find out whatever news there was from whoever was there. Much to my surprise, there was no-one at the door ready to identify themselves and their message, and yet a package with my name on it had been left at the door. It was a most curious circumstance, and yet I saw no real harm in it, because secret gift giving was the hallmark of the holiday season. I myself had delivered many a gift in that manner over the years. The package was heavier than it should have been from its size, and once I had it indoors I eagerly opened it to find out what it was and who had sent it. Alas, there was no identification of the giver, and more's the pity because what was inside was a most remarkable carved wood box, worked with figures of animals and dragons all over, in a magnificent shade of red. Whoever sent it to me must have been a prankster, though, because I could see no way into the box, no clasp or lock announced itself, no hinge or platen presented itself as a means to the inside. I was locked out, and most frustrated by this unfortunate turn of events.





I set off for the kitchen and, if I was lucky, a screwdriver. It occurred to me that the painstakingly detailed carving would be ruined by my bullish attempt to get to the contents of the box. Curiosity urged me on. I picked up the box and it began to hum, seemingly loudly enough to wake the entire neighborhood. A quick glance at the dog though, found my faithful pooch legs up, snoring like the good guard dog he was.

I placed the box on the kitchen counter for fear of dropping it and the hum abruptly stopped. How could it be? My mind fought hard against the perception that this small thing had been the author of that hum. Yet the memory of it was like ripples in a pond long after a stone has broken its surface. The box now seemed an ominous, living thing.

I found the courage to reach out and touch the box again. Nothing. Without warning the box began to glow. My eyes filled with an intense, blinding light… then a vision. The face of my brother, these long years dead. My heart ached for him. The vision changed to my first singing performance. Applause washed over me like healing water. My regrets, one by one played on that bright screen …everything I ever wished to re-do.

The humming returned so suddenly it was painful. The floor pitched and yawed beneath my feet and I fell to my knees. The humming crowded out the light and I spiraled into darkness.

I came to slowly, in an unfamiliar bed. I was afraid. Innately I knew these surroundings were mine, but I also knew I’d never been here before. Beside my bed was the red carved box. The sound of approaching footsteps created a sudden rush of adrenaline that threatened to return me to unconsciousness.

“Señora?” the door opened. “Yes?” I inquired. “Tu hermano esta llamando.” My head swam. I picked up the receiver at my bedside, “Hey,” the voice was unmistakable and darkness threatened again to swallow me up… “Hey,” I croaked back. “Let’s take the boys to the beach today. I’ll be over in an hour…get your sorry ass out of bed. Love you bye.” I couldn't answer.

Then I heard them running up the stairs. The three of them home and in my room laughing. They were little again … I held them and smelled their smell and cried. The box had done this! I’d prayed so many nights…. “Please God; I beg you…turn back the hands of time. Give me another chance. I know better now….” and now it was done.

There it sat ominously unsolved on my nightstand. As my children sat around me on my bed I didn’t care about its solution. It wasn’t for me to solve, just to pay it forward.

I’ll package the box again and leave it on some unsuspecting doorstep because after all, we do serve a God of second chances.