The day started at 3:30 AM. I hate days that start at 3:30 AM. I was awake before the alarm, kind of awake, anyhow, in that cozy half awake dreaming place. The alarm pulls me away from that place. The day has begun whether or not I'm ready for it, whether or not I want to be up and moving.
Tuesday morning is freight day at the store. It is a physically hard day. Our freight team puts all the stock on the shelves. I planned to get to the store, and work like crazy. I needed to finish up as quickly as possible. It was going to be a nice day, and I wanted to load up another truckload of things and get them to the new house. Tim has hurt himself, pinched a nerve, and he is having a terrible time. I try to stay one step ahead of him, working like crazy so that he won't. He can't. So there's that, and I also had several projects that I was in the middle of for school, and then we have a practical the following week, and a presentation to do
And that sums up how things have been around here. I'm busy. I'm so busy. It just keeps coming at me, and I keep juggling as best I can. I didn't know I could juggle, but apparently I can, because all those balls stay in the air, and I have no idea how I'm managing to do this. I can't stop to think about it. Shoot. I simply cannot stop at all, but at 3:30 AM it is best not to think too far ahead anyway, so I got myself out of bed, and I got ready for work, and I drove down off the hill.
I did work hard. It was a good morning. I enjoy my co-workers. Josiah, Matt, Pete, Ryan, Bob and I worked together, and we worked hard. For the first time, I put away tools, and I found where they went, without the scan gun. I was pretty proud of that. Freight day has taught me a lot about my store. "Hey!" I yelled out. "Who did not have to use the scanner to find where any of the tools went today?"
They feigned ignorance just so I had the joy of saying, "Yep. Yeeepppp. It was Debby." It was so much fun that I did it a half dozen more times.
I headed out of the store, and straight for home to haul a load of stuff down to the new house. I was running ahead of schedule. This was great! Maybe I could get my two projects done and even start on a third (this was good news!) and I flew around getting things packed as ideas swirled around in my head for yet another school project.
I got down to the new house, and began hauling boxes in. I began to quickly unpack boxes. This was just one thing on a very full plate. I had other things to get to.
In my busy-ness and rushing, it occurred to me that all of our things have a place, and that I knew where everything fit at the new house. It was almost as if we'd been buying things specifically for this house all of our lives. I marveled at that. My busy mind began to slow down.
Tim helped me hang the kitchen curtains that we'd bought back in the summer, and they looked perfect with the yellow walls and white trim. We slid the oak table where we wanted it to go in front of the picture window in the kitchen. My collection of tins and Tim's collection of old glass bottles have always been on top of our kitchen cupboards, and they looked very nice set there once again. I put down the rug that Mary and Danny had bought us. And Tim sat in the chair, and said, "This is really nice." And it was. After months of working, the new paint made everything bright, and the hardwood floors gleamed. It was very nice.
Tim left to do an errand, and I continued to putter around the house. I hung my clock in the front hall. I wound it, and that comfortable ticking seemed to slow my mind even more.
I headed up to the third floor, and I began to unpack things in the playroom. I imagined William pulling coloring books and crayons out of the desk drawer. I imagined him and I curled up in front of the television there to watch the same Disney movies that I had watched with his aunts and uncles. I wondered what his voice would sound like when he began to talk. I arranged the play things, filled with happy daydreamings. I got a hammer and I hung a picture hook. I hung the country picture that read, "Angels gather here." It seemed perfect.
I wandered across the hall to the bedroom, and I put together the furniture there. I arranged the secretary, and the dresser, two beds will go on either side of windows, tucked beneath the sloping eaves. There are white curtains in those two rooms, and I pictured them blowing in the breeze of another summer.
I went down to the second floor and I worked in Tim's hunting room, and I worked in the guest bedroom, and I daydreamed about the people who would sleep there. I hung my butterfly picture above the little hall table where it has always hung.
I worked and I daydreamed, and from far away, I heard my clock chiming the hour. I started a little. It was a crazy moment of dej'a vu. I was not in my bed, but I had managed to get myself in that cozy half awake dreaming place anyway. That morning, I'd been responsible, gotten up and went to work, but this night, I decided to ignore the clock. I worked on, alone and lost in my daydreams.
Later, when I locked the door with the shiny skeleton key, I stepped off the porch, looking up at the bright full moon. That's when I decided, on the spur of the moment, not to spend the rest of the night doing homework.
And I didn't either.
Tomorrow, the alarm will go off at 5:30, but I'll be awake before it does, in that half awake dreaming place. Tomorrow, I'll hit the floor running. Tomorrow, I'll work, and I'll work hard, and I'll probably get a couple school projects done, and I'll need to get some more things moved. Tomorrow I'll be responsible once again.
Tonight, though, tonight, I stopped, just for a moment, and it felt luxurious.