All I needed was a clean pair of socks. It’s not like I didn’t know where they were. I just couldn’t get to them. Yesterday morning at 8:30 Mickey got a text from the excavator saying that he would be at our place in thirty minutes and that we needed to move the motorhome out of the way so he could level out the ground. In a matter of minutes, my morning took a sharp turn from calm to chaos.
Moving the motorhome isn’t a big deal if we’re already in travel mode. However, after spending the last five months in one place, packing your life up in thirty minutes feels like a grownup version of an elementary school fire drill—books in the desk, chairs pushed in, a line formed at the door, and then a calm walk down the hallway to the playground. In reality, there was nothing calm about it as I frantically moved from one thing to the next without any order whatsoever. I knew from past experience that the first thing I needed to do was down-stack because everything that is not on the floor will end up there one way or another, including the coffee pot, the half-full-still-hot cup of coffee, books, my computer, the hanging basket of fruit, the music stand, my beautiful tin-framed mirror…you get the idea. If that’s not enough, there were all the things I hadn’t got around to such as putting away the clean clothes and washing the dishes—it was a late night, and another late night before that.
I continued piling things in every opening of floor space I could find including the space surrounding the bed, which I hadn’t made yet either…ugh. By the time Mickey turned the key and started the engine, it looked like some sort of mini tornado had just blown through. As we drove down the dirt road, I heard the familiar sound of things falling—the salt and pepper shakers, Mickey’s collection of stuff he had on the tv tray—a battery, guitar picks, a pocket knife, and miscellaneous things, all of which went sliding across the floor. The timing added a bit of intensity as well—we were in the middle of back-to-back band gigs which meant late nights, and less than adequate sleep.
The excavator came and left in less than an hour. I’m sure he had no idea about the chain of events he had set off. We spent the rest of the day getting set back up again and with things still a mess, we got ready to leave for the gig. I just needed a pair of clean socks, which were in the cabinet on my side of the bed—now inaccessible due to all the stuff I had piled there. With Mickey impatiently waiting, I dug through the bag of clean laundry and found one orphan sock. Fortunately, our puppy Dennis had grabbed one of Mickey’s dirty socks, so in desperation, I put it on and headed out the door.
I don’t know how the conversation started, but last night Mickey told me that Dennis took one of his socks. I said I had borrowed it to which he replied, “I noticed you had two different socks on.” I just smiled and said, “yeah."
Tomorrow is the Spring Equinox. As I look back on the events of the past two days, I realize the timing was perfect after all. It gave me a chance to go through things, create some space, and bring a small sense of order back into my life, down to a matching pair of clean socks. In a life that is passing so quickly at a pace that seems to get faster every day, this impromptu spring clean feels like a tall glass of water. And it’s just what I needed most.
Funny. I wish I could say I'd be able to see the humor in things as easily as you!