My own personal Karate Kid training
Mood:
lazy
Now Playing: "To Be Loved" by Curtis Stigers (yes, off the Dawson's Creek album)
Topic: Daily Eruptions
It has been too long since my last post, but I've been too busy living my life to write about it. Any processing that absolutely needed to be done - and there was plenty of it - all had to be done verbally because I needed instant feedback so I could deal and move on. Many thanks to Chad, Scott, and John who helped me process quickly, and for their patience, understanding, and willingness to drop everything to listen when I needed to talk. Thanks, too, to Mom & Dad and Sudie for their (ongoing) interventions. It was time I woke up to certain realities about my life with Hans and that I got very clear about what I needed and will accept, and they refuse to rest until I see this and acknowledge my own value. Hans and I are still in major transition between the two houses and Hans's new job so we have yet to discuss much of this, but we are being very careful to treat each other well and respect boundaries, and we are living under the same roof again, which does help. I think we both know there is a great deal of work ahead of us in terms of our relationship, and as far as I can tell, Hans is committed to doing the work with me. A good thing....
As far as the house goes, we're 99% moved in (I still have some boxes to move from my old closet directly into my new closet), I've had the old place repainted, now I have to schedule the carpets and clean all the surfaces. I started painting the new place--enough that you can see the effect of having three colors arranged in close proximity (I wasn't sure I liked it at first, but Hans shocked me when he returned from Seattle and immediately said that he did like it)--but the tile job in Hans's shower took more time and effort than I'd planned, it being the first tiling I'd ever attempted. The grout, for example, I did without any parental supervision and it was a HUGE fiasco! I thought I had to get all the grout on the wall before it dried out before I could go back and start wiping off the extra with a sponge and dressing the lines. Very bad mistake! It took me three hours to get the grout up on the wall (there aren't words to explain why) and I was supposed to start removing it with a sponge after only 45 minutes.... Needless to say, it dried out on me and I spent five more hours with my hands raised above my head balancing on the edges of the tub scraping grout off the walls with a putty knife, digging out the top layer of grout in the grout lines, and then using a sponge to try to even and smooth it. It was like spending eight hours clinging to the side of a mountain I couldn't climb or descend, all while trying to keep the grout as damp as possible by alternately pouring water on it with a sponge and trying to scrape off the stuff that was already dried. I told Scott you would have thought I was trying to save a beached whale with the intensity at which I was working, and probably, saving the whale would have been easier. By the end of the day, every vein in my right arm had risen to the surface, causing my skin to appear blue, and I was having heart palpitations. (I LOVE THE TILE, though! Very professional looking, totally finishes the room.) Unfortunately, I'd only scheduled three hours for the grout and had planned to finish painting the living room in the afternoon and work through the night to get the kitchen done before Hans came home the next day. After my eight-hour grout ordeal, however, I was in no shape to pick up a paint roller, so there are still three living room walls and 5 more kitchen walls (the kitchen has seven walls total) that need to be done. I'm hoping to get that finished the first weekend in August, although Hans is still dreaming that we'll be able to afford to pay the guys who painted the old place to come out and finish here.
There are boxes and piles still to be dealt with in every direction, but I can see it all coming together slowly, and it's going to be good. And as hard as the painting and tiling have been, it is such a high to be creating with color and shapes in large, physical space! Watching my tile pattern go up on the wall was like writing the best poem and getting the exact right word in the exact right place every time. And digging the pattern out from under all the grout was like doing a painstaking archaeological dig and uncovering a piece of art, tile by tile, grout line by grout line. And the paint colors may be intense in such close proximity, but they're colors I chose and they express an idea I want to express. They're my experiment, my dialogue with my space and my senses and with any visitors I may have. I have never gotten to create on such a large scale before, never gotten to express myself so boldly and in such a physical, permanent manner. It is absolutely the best drug ever.
I've lost four more pounds over the last two weeks with all the labor of getting the house ready and moving, and I'm calling all of this labor cross-training, because I have had neither time nor energy to run. I felt while Hans was in Seattle like I was in my own personal version of The Karate Kid movie. I kept waiting for Pat Morita to show up and say, "Show me paint the wall. Show me grout on....grout off. Show me pack the box. Show me smile for ungrateful husband." But it was mostly just me talking to myself and Kaija trying to stay out of my way.
Thoughts captured by Kristine
at 5:18 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, July 14, 2005 7:21 PM EDT