Counting on a Miracle

Originally Posted Thursday, May 16, 2014

Another sleepless night and another morning of exhaustion.  The plumber comes in just a bit to take a look at the leak.  I thought about this all night, this and other things in the house that I have let go.  The roof must be replaced and the electrical wiring redone.  It is an old house.  I need to get new shutters for the bedroom and dining room and two big rugs need to be replaced.  The deck is rotten and I need to put up an awning over the bedroom door.  There are cracks that need re-plastering.  All these things haunted my dark wakefulness and more.  My body has become much like the house.  I need to get a tooth looked at that I think I cracked eating a hard sourdough pretzel, and of course there is my knee that must be cut.  I probably need much more than this.  No, I know I do.  And so in the darkness I looked forward to the bills and watched another year's vacation transform into a maintenance fee.  And then there is the studio which I seem not to be using any more.  It is a warehouse now of equipment, props, and prints.  And the prints--oh, I've made too many.  I don't know what to do with them all.  If I let the studio go, they will end up in a crate in the attic where they will disintegrate.  I had thought to sell them at some point, but after my initial excitement at selling a print, no others were forthcoming.  For a moment I had thought of almost breaking even with expenses, but that was foolish. 

I am certain to have new horrors to report once the plumber arrives. 

Meanwhile, my life dribbles away in the factory.  I will soon have maxed out my income potential there.  I must come to grips with the fact that I've made the most money I will ever make in my life.  It is not a comforting thought.  Like most people, I come to the realization that I worked my entire life.  How did I fool myself so imagining that I was somehow preparing to do something else, that I was another person, that I was different from the hoi-poloi?  But there had to be income.  There had to be work. 

There has been a sudden shift in temperature here, the highs and lows dropping ten degrees.  It is a welcomed reprieve.  I am hoping that the plumber will be a dedicated and clever boy who can fix my leak with a minimum of strife.  That might change everything.  All of life might turn on a dime.  Suddenly the horizon could open up again, and I could imagine myself traveling, collecting stories, making pictures. 

I'm counting on a miracle (video if you like).