In the Crapper

My day started out in the crapper.  Literally.

Friday is trash day, so after Charlie got ready for school we started loading garbage into my car.  I'm always amazed at how much waste two people can create in a few days' time.  When I got to work, I tucked it into the dumpster, knowing the garbage truck would arrive in minutes to empty it.  I needed the trunk of my car empty to carry picnic stuff to the other side of the park later.

Feeling productive already, I made my way inside and started preparing for the day's festivities.  I made tea, made coffee, boxed up some stuff to take down to the picnic tables.  I carried a table down all by myself, which because I am short, was not easy, and then decided to wait for more help to do the rest.

Memorial Day Picnic. It's a grand event in its simplicity; it's something we do every year that reminds us of the freedom we enjoy to spend time together eating good cooking and telling silly jokes.  We pour our tall plastic cups full of sweet tea and find a shady spot, eager to inhale the fresh air of May, not really so put off by the sun as we will be in another month or so.  If you see pictures of the day, it will look so peaceful and quiet.  Smiling faces behind plates of picnic fare, people sitting among friends in the shade of the big tree behind the Hall; a tree that has cast its shade over many a head over the last 300 years or so.

Looks can be deceiving.

Not long after the first few members of my group arrived, I heard someone say, "Rebecca, you need to come look at this."  She was gesturing towards the bathroom.  Following behind her, my blood was already beginning to boil.  This bathroom, the bane of my existence at my job for the last two years, was of course, going to challenge me on a day when my stress level couldn't get higher.

The crapper sat, full of crap.  Brown paper towels floated atop the water, the tank still running from some attempt yesterday to flush the mess down.  I took off to get gloves, or tongs or something with which to fish out the paper towels so the toilet would flush.  I announced to the entire room, "Do not use the handicapped stall in the ladies room.  It is out of order."  Looked in the bottom cabinet for gloves.  None there.  Went back into the bathroom to put up a sign and startled a lady who was walking out.  "No!" I thought.  "No, she did not just use that toilet!"

Yes.  Yes she did.  Even though I had the trash can right in front of it, had the plunger sitting next to it, and a small mountain of brown stuff sat staring up at her, she sat, she did her thing, she flushed.  There is another toilet 3 feet away.  This was my day.

I tried to call for backup.  Got no response.  The number in my phone for the Rec. Director yielded me no results.  Turns out the number got mixed up with another person's number and I had been sending texts about clogged toilets and running water to a lady I've only met one time in my life, all morning long.

 We got a sign on the door and no one else used the broken pot for the rest of the day.  Too late for me though.  Past the point of reason, I wanted to curse at everyone I saw.  So when the rude lady from Ingles called to tell me my platter of chicken had "Been ready for a long time!!!"  I was not necessarily sunny or sweet.  I did welcome the chance to leave the building for a while though, so I grabbed my keys and took off.

Driving around the curve from Whitney St. to Slater Road, I wondered what would happen if I just never went back.  I let the scene unfold in my head as I drove to Ingles, but I knew I could never abandon my pack like that.  I got the doggoned chicken and headed back to my doom.

The "Happy Strummers" were there.  They were setting up their ukuleles and chairs, getting ready to entertain.  The building was hotter than hades.  I turned on the AC, waited for someone to complain about the cool air, decided to tune out the complaints and keep the AC going anyway.  The Strummers strummed away, Tiny Bubbles, God Bless America, All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir".  Happy strummers playing happy music, it somehow didn't fit with my ill mood.

I listened for a while, then got to work taking things outside for later.  First, one trunk load of food, tablecloths, decorations, then later another load of the same made it down to the picnic area.  Once the music ended a free-for-all ensued with Uke players packing up instruments, seniors getting in one another's way, big guys breaking down tables to carry outside and still others carrying chairs that were too heavy for them to carry.  It all went down so fast I couldn't establish any semblance of order. Somehow though, we ended up having a picnic outside with chairs and tables enough for everyone. Food was plentiful, shade generous.  Our guests felt welcomed and at home which made me feel proud of my group of seniors.

As the picnic wound down, people started offering their help getting everything back in place.  Two pickup truck loads and a car-trunk load later, everything was back inside our building and every single person, sweating and huffing, was thoroughly worn out.

The building finally quiet after most everyone left, I sat with two ladies and talked nonsense for a while.  We ranted about the clogged toilet, laughed at my texting guffaw, marvelled at the idea that any human being would leave such a mess in a toilet.

Sometimes I let things get too heavy.  I know I do this.  I let a crapped out crapper nearly ruin my day, but thanks to a lot of really great people who've lived and plunged far many more years than me, I began to see how I sometimes make mountains out of molehills.  I went home tired but satisfied that my efforts were not in vain.  A lot of folks had a fun day, so it was worth the work and confusion, even the temporary irritation.  Thank goodness I didn't take my anger out on that poor rude lady at Ingle's, who knows what kind of morning she'd had?

Now I'm sitting on my couch in my cool living room, feet propped up on the ottoman, a cute little tune racing through my brain that I never heard before today.

All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir.  I guess even the ones who leave their crap for everyone else to clean up.  On this Memorial Day Weekend, I want to thank the men and women who gave their lives so I could live in a country where a day that starts out in the toilet ends up being a pretty darn good day.

And thank you, my friends, for putting up with me when I'm letting the little things in life disproportionately weigh me down.  I always lighten up, eventually.

Hazy Shades of LIfe

Music was a big part of my life when I was growing up.  I don't mean concerts or listening to cassette tapes or radio.  I mean making music or listening and watching my father and his brothers play guitars.  My family sang together in church a quartet of sorts, with my Mom, Dad and two sisters, my dad accompanying with the guitar.  As  little kid in our very informal church I took a seat in the choir on Sundays and felt myself lifted up in the waves of melody and harmony, the deep altos blending so beautifully with the sopranos and tenors, my dad in the back row with a few other men belting out those bass notes like nobody's business, but the blending of it all elevated my spirits.  I remember feeling as if all the sound were coming from inside my own head, my own voice finding a part and learning to sing it as I followed along with another alto or tenor, finding my niche was natural to me.

When I was 10 or 11 we met a lady who played an autoharp.  It is likely the easiest instrument on Earth to play, but I wanted one very badly so I could sit and play music with my dad and his brothers.  I wanted to be included.  So my dad found one for me for my 11th birthday, gave me picks and a song book that told me what notes to play.  The chords were all marked on the keyboard, and soon by playing music with my dad, learning he positioning of his left hand on the guitar neck, I learned all the chords that make up a key.  Pretty soon I was playing along with them, without having to watch their hands--somehow my ears or my brain just knew which note came next.

From there I graduated to a little toy organ.  I spent hours picking out notes on it, learning to read music all by myself.  I watched he pianist at church and felt so envious.  Anytime there was an unguarded piano I'd make my way to it and try to pick out some tunes.  By the time I was about 15 I was driving my parents crazy with my craving for a piano. A few days before Christmas I came home to find a huge upright piano sitting in my bedroom with a big red bow on top.  I was so excited and surprised I didn't know how to say thank you, so I sat down and played the only little ditty I knew and then went smiling to my father and gave him the biggest hug ever.

I took formal lessons, but I practiced mostly what I wanted.  I sat at that piano for hours a day, making up tunes, learning new ones, observing myself in the mirror to make sure my posture was perfect.  I listened to the way other people played and tried to emulate their styles.  Eventually I got good enough to play in public, although my nerves got the best of me most of the time.

When I got married I spent countless hours playing whatever song popped into my head.  When I was sad, I played.  When I was lonely, I played.  When I was angry or hurt or stressed, the piano absorbed my bad juju and restored me to a place of positivity and hope.

I have my favorite music.  The songs that have spoken to my soul and gotten me through the darkest days and the happiest days of my life.  Music, they say, is therapy for the soul and I believe that's true.  However, there was about a 2 year period of my life when music was not helpful to me.  It was painful.  I found myself thinking too far back in time, my nostalgia brought about by those familiar sounds was too tough to sit in.  Many of the songs about love and heart break and disappointment hit too close to home and I found myself avoiding music to avoid wallowing in my pain.  So the last couple of years, my life has been oddly silent, but comfortingly so.

Over the last few days, I've reconnected with my music.  I listened to Neil Young sing Old Man the other morning, listened to "Comes a Time" and now, on the other side of my hurt, I find hope in those tunes.  Tonight I'm indulging in Simon and Garfunkel, both the sappy sad and the happy.  I'm letting the music take me to someplace new, rather than allowing it to trap me on a train headed backwards, into a past that cannot change to suit me now.

I know that now is what I have, and this train is only moving forward, with background music that sets the mood for the soundtrack of my life.



Here I go.