I've had a slowly evolving epiphany over the last few days. Sorry, I know that epiphanies, while just so wow deeply meaningful for the person having them, are very very duh to everyone else. So I'll just try to focus on the thoughts which lead up to the oh and not belabor the depth and profundity of it all.
You're smart. You'll get it. You'll probably get there way faster than I did.
There was an older couple living across the street when I first bought my house. I think the average age of the street was probably around 71 before I moved in. The woman had a lot of health issues and didn't get out much. The man walked his dog, a very excitable dachshund named Arnie, several times a day, so I saw him often. We weren't close, but he seemed nice. He was trying to get his wife and himself into a nursing home that would allow him to keep Arnie. Eventually he succeeded and they moved. There was at least one owner after that who didn't really live in the house and bought t just to flip.
The next real owners to move in was another older couple, their daughter, and her toddler son. I didn't know them well either, but they did not seem nice. I spent a lot time rolling my eyes after any encounter with any part of that family but especially after dealing with the man. He was big on now-you-just-listen-to-me-little-lady unsolicited homeowner advice. To be fair, he never said "little lady" to my face, but trust me, it was implied.
The condescension was bad enough, but he was also usually very wrong. Like the time I was raking my gorgeous pain in the ass maple leaves after a week of freezing rain. I was maybe a little short tempered when he drove up. Instead of pulling into his driveway, he stopped in front of his house, rolled down his window, and called to me. I was bagging what I'd raked so far. "You can just let the leaf-sucker get it," he called. I said thanks but I was almost done. He, with increasing frustration at my stupidity, "The leaf-sucker's coming." He pointed. "Quit wasting your time and let the leaf-sucker get it."
It wasn't the leaf-sucker. My county, at that time, shared a leaf-sucker (I'm sure there's a better term for it, but you can figure out what I mean) with another rural county. So there was a strict use schedule so both counties could get the truck around to all of the neighborhoods in all of the small towns. And I knew my neighborhood was always scheduled for early to mid-September and this exchange was in mid- to late December, which is when the gorgeous pain in the ass maple leaves fall in Kentucky. I also knew the leaf-sucker broke down early in the season and hadn't yet been fixed so very few neighborhoods in either county were cleared by it. And finally I did look up when my neighbor said the leaf-sucker was on the cross street and I could see that it was the regular plain ol' garbage truck -- a garbage truck that was obviously finished for the day as it was just tootling along without stopping.
So I kept scooping leaves into bags and my neighbor kept yelling that the leaf-sucker was coming and to let the leaf-sucker get my leaves.
The leaves were in the piles in the middle of my yard so even if the leaf-sucker were an option, I'd have to use Flash speed to rake the leaves out to the gutter.
Yeah, major eye roll.
He finally just started off again. I have no idea why he just parked in front of his house other than to tell me what I was doing wrong. he didn't drop off anyone, didn't pick up anyone, didn't get out of the car himself. My next door neighbor, considerably older than the across-the-street older neighbor, came over to commiserate and join in on the eye rolling.
So when I came home on the next trash day and saw someone had moved my emptied garbage can back by the basement door, I knew who must have done it. I worked second shift then and usually got home around 11:00 pm. I could just picture my neighbor watching out his front window, glaring at the garbage can still on the curb as the day wore on, morning into afternoon into evening into night. When did he decide it was late enough and move the can back? Did he even wait until dark?
I would have confronted him, but really, I couldn't stand talking to him. So smug. And as the whole leaf-sucker issue showed. he'd never acknowledge when he was wrong. And then the blessed realtor sign blossomed in his yard (the first of many, the house was on and off the market for six or seven years with various real estate agencies and finally "by owner").
My garbage can was moved back to the basement door almost every week after that. One day I was on the couch by the window overlooking the driveway. (I don't remember why. Stayed home sick, maybe?) And I heard the garbage can being dragged down the driveway. I jumped up and glared out
and it was a neighbor from farther up the street. Paul. We used to work together at a local college. He was chair of the Religion department until his heart attack led (forced) him to retire. He took a walk most mornings. And, as I later learned from actually talking to him about it, he started moving garbage cans around for some of the elderly (Paul was only in his late 60s at that time) people on our street and since he did the two house before mine and the house after mine on his rounds he just added my house to his list.
He still does it. I'm pretty sure he even adjusted the timing of his morning walk so he's out after garbage pick-up. I'm also pretty sure I'm the only person he does this for now. The octogenarians and nonagenarians of that time have since passed.
Many times I've come home very late and very very tired on a rainy trash day and seen my garbage can back in its place by the basement door and blessed Paul for his continuing kindness.
I don't know what sent my brain down that path week before last. I've thought about it before, that what had seemed officious and smugly judgy from Mr. Jerkface across the street immediately became truly neighborly when I learned it was Paul.
It came back to me this morning. If you've watched the news you know the south has had winter this year. Snow in Alabama, ice in Tennessee, etc. Kentucky, which usually gets a little bit of some kind of winter every year, has gotten it all. We've had the normal (for other states, not for us) tho a bit dull highs in the teens with a few inches of snow, our usual rain with predicted drop in temps with warnings of black ice that turn out to be nothing much but cold really, the dreaded nothing predicted okay maybe a few flurries oh my god it's three inches and counting and the temp is dropping so the roads are freezing, and finally the ice storm we get every four years or so. Now we're in a week of steady lows in the 20s highs in the 40s partly sunny to mostly cloudy with no precipitation until the weekend (of course).
And it feels almost balmy.
A month ago when it dropped into steady lows in the 20s highs in the 40s partly sunny to mostly cloudy I wore layers. Long sleeve tee under short sleeve tee and put on my cardigan over it all at work. Heavy coat, gloves, and scarf. Today I'm wearing a tee shirt. Full stop. I had my cardigan on for awhile at my desk in the back, but then it was too warm when I went up front. Lighter coat. No scarf. Gloves when I first got in the car waiting for the ice on the windshield to melt.
So today's word is perspective. It changes everything.
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