We've got a lot done on the Range this year, most of it improvements you won't notice, and only a couple big projects requiring permits, but it was a steady bit of restoration, organization and clean up, especially after we had a basement flood.
It meant there was little time to work on book #3 this year, as it's pretty hard to concentrate with the noise, even on the days I can't really help. My work days are also much longer now with the commute and there are no more "bachelor pad" nights, where after talking to my husband on the phone, I had several hours to work. I am so blessed to be home full time, but those extra hours allowed me to write a lot more.
Today, I have only a lunch break to jot down some chapter ideas, while at home my husband looks at a pile of stringers, as a man does when confronted by a creature that may sting or bite, and he cares for neither. He'll get it done, even if it takes a couple more weekends, because we want it done right, not quick, a concept foreign to many people.
But I do a little bit each week on the book, half a chapter or so, if it takes me another year just to get it ready for the editing, I'm OK with that. For if becomes "work", something I have to do, or am expected to do, I'll just walk away, because that is not why I write.
Seeing the house unfold, as two homes were combined, has been a pleasure, though I'm sure burglars will look through the front window, see all of the antiques, the sconces on the wall, NO TV or sound equipment and will walk away, thinking a couple 90 year old's live here. Though the kitchen cabinets were completely rebuilt, the walls re-plastered and painted, it still looks like a 40's kitchen, the only decorative bits my Mom's Swedish horses and a jar of marbles I found in my brother's childhood bedroom, the ones we played with for years as children, crouched down like small gargoyles perched on the edge of the earth.
For my brother and I were quietly and fiercely competitive, and a game of marbles, like any game, was approached like an act of war, with the only fire being friendly. I can still recall his pale hands gently grasping the larger marble, poised for movement, while I watched like a hawk, to see if I could discern by draw of breath, by pace of breath, by the dart of an eye, his intention. There were times he was so intent on the task, it seemed as if he ceased to breathe, only the sun glinting on the marble in his hand, letting me know that time had not stopped.
The sun still glints on those marbles as you walk through the kitchen into the living room. Looking around, the time could be 2016 or it could be 1935. I like that sense of timelessness as I spend my work day dealing with the machining of lives and law. By the time I get home, the drive sometimes taking as long as an hour and a half, I'm breathing slow and labored, like a man with a hundred pound weight on his chest. I walk into this house, make some tea or pour a finger of scotch, put on some Classical music, and light a lamp, and the air goes out of my chest in a gentle whoosh. In that instant, I care nothing for politics, for work, or what is outside, only the slow dance of my evening with my best friend, spouse, and Abby's stuffed animal surgeon.
In thinking back in this quiet place, I'm surprised by how much my brother was the same way. It was only recently that I found out, that though adopted together we weren't biological siblings, only bonded ones. Our parents refused to discuss our origins, we were family was all they felt we needed to know, and perhaps they didn't know themselves. But with his red hair and height, like myself, no one ever said in school "are you adopted?" I had always thought we were biological siblings or at least half siblings and when I found out we weren't when our birth certificates were unsealed I was a little disappointed until I realized it never mattered
For we were family and I loved him as deeply as he loved and defended me.
But as his home was readied for sale and his things were organized at my Dad's where he lived the last year of his life, while his son took care of the home he no longer could afford, I saw a familiar pattern.
His home had no home computer and no TV. The furniture was old and much of it was hand restored. The house was in need of updating, but he preferred to do that himself, on his own schedule, rather than pay someone with the fruits of his labor for tasks he could easily learn how to do himself. There, beneath a stopped clock, responsive now only to the last stroke of eternity, sat some tools for yet another project he'd never be able to wield them for to finish.
But despite the lack of modern conveniences, there was one large 80's tape player and a stereo, with both vinyl and tapes to go with it. In the last year of his life he played music almost all day, everything from big band to 70's rock. He left much of what he owned at the home for his son and daughter in law to use when they moved to keep the place up and pay the taxes until it could be sold. But he brought his music and his books to my Dads, of which there were many, his clothes, his firearms and his tools. Much of his submarine stuff went on the walls where it will remain until Dad is gone. But there were boxes and boxes to be sorted through after he was gone. Some of it made me cry, some of it made me smile, and the first thing I am going to ask him when I see him in Heaven is why he had a live flare gun in his nightstand.
That last night as we gathered up his things, I realized, that as different as we were in many ways, he being the fellow that always had a hundred friends, me being the one that only allowed a handful in close, he terrified of flying, myself terrified of small enclosed places. Yet, we were so alike, strong willed and sometimes stubborn. I could almost smell the white smoke of the cigarettes he refused to quit smoking, even as the cancer ate at him, smelling it burning in the ash tray by his fingers, the smoke trailing out the window into the tattered, tumbling midnight.
Both of us spent the majority of our adult life in service to our country, even if at times, we greatly disagreed with its leadership, Both of us were quiet in our public opinions on such matters, but in private, with one another, we could discuss with great passion those fails and omissions of those we as a country put in power, as well as our staunch support of those rights that would keep us from forced servitude. For we both knew that with enough power, this carefully built world, still contains within it the command to be seized, and we'd make sure we did all we could to lawfully keep that from happening.
Our cars bore an emblem of the US flag, and our shelves the Bible, and we refused to apologize for either. For many years, we turned down promotions to higher command, both realizing that although command was sometimes magic, it often contained an atmosphere of officialdom that seemed to staunch human endeavor and we were happier out in the field, preferring out hands bloodied or dirtied to the false supremacy of paper and ink.
If was only when retirement was on the horizon that I donned the suit to work at headquarters, and my brother took on greater responsibilities, both wanting those that worked under us to realize they were more than ghosts to us, ignored in the darkness of our pursuit for our own personal power, as we looked through them with falsely perceived inferiority. We might not make a difference, but we were going to go out with the dignity of at least trying.
He'd still laugh if he saw me in a suit though.
I'm glad I have these days and these memories - for my brother left an imprint of his life behind, one that's so similar to mine - that in the recognition of, I sometimes feel closer to him in death than our deep bond in life.
As the tools are put down as darkness was upon us, I looked up at the skies. What captures my gaze are the unsteady stars, that if blown upon would tumble like large marbles in the sky, then brighten to small specks of light in a wet sheen, that I realized was the view through my tears.
With each small thing of his that are now part of my house, I realize that for all of us, midnight will come. But I'm not going to let midnight be flung down upon me, I'm going to drag midnight along with me for the ride, as hammers are swung and boards are bent and free will is our only salvation. In the end it may not be done, but it will be started, and that, with the rest and the little death of sleep will be my escape and my reward. Then, when my body is finally free of sweat, and the house is quiet, I'll sleep. It will be a sleep without regret, in a slightly worse for wear home in which my heart sleeps next to me and my defender lays quietly in the drawer, a round in the chamber.