Yard sale today. The second annual.
It was cloudy and cool, so I've only got a minor sunburn this year. Wore better sandals, didn't get up 'til 7, wore a hat. These are the things I learned last year. Applied knowledge is a wonderful thing.
I don't think we made quite as much dosh this year, but that's not really the point. (Although I'm informed that, according to our "financial umbrella", we're in the hole to the tune of $84. I think we made that much, at least.) (Probably.) (After the hot dogs are paid for.)
A few of us were on the lawn at the Motel from 7:30 until about 2:30. There was lots of help to set things up. There are always people around who need to earn community service hours and CL finds work for them where she can.
A few dissolute souls (you know who you are) dragged in a couple of hours later, recovering from a late night out at a Leonard Cohen concert and a long drive home. They stayed later to help clear up.
We had hot dogs and drinks and face painting. I got a ukulele on my cheek. With music notes.
BL and I brought our ukes and had a jam session of sorts with H, who can really play the guitar. He has a drum machine which, for we strumming newbies, was a great thing. He gave us a chord progression and we followed. It was a lot of fun. A Lot! Loved it. Best part of the day. H. had a health scare earlier this year that I didn't write about, and he seems to be recovered and making plans. Beautiful man.
We set up the finger pinching tent outside E's room again and had a cooler of drinks, a tank of coffee, a picnic table and a barbeque for the dogs. The barbeque is one CL got for free from somewhere and it works just fine as long as you don't open the lid all the way. Then it falls off. Makes an impressive crashbang on the parking lot. Ask me how I know.
The highlight of the day for E was a visit from a local musician who's visited us a couple of times. She has his picture on her fridge and his CD in the player. He came by today and brought his guitar expressly for the purpose of singing a duet with her. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo." (None of which my spellchecker objects to. Interesting.) She sang full throated and joyful with such animation, smiling and gesturing, all three times through the song. Such a grace filled moment. He stood chatting outside her door for a while afterwards with his own voice blasting out from the stereo indoors. I wondered what that was like.
A couple of friends who used to live at the Motel came along and set up a sale of their own closer to the road, which was cool. The more the merrier. I bought a Toni Braxton CD from them. Love Toni Braxton.
We missed one friend today, who moved out last week. She and her man split up. Sad. I like them both quite a lot and I was sorry to hear about how things were going.
K and R turned up, wheeling across the wet grass to come say hi. K makes jewellery and she made me some earrings. Now I have to get my ears pierced. That was the deal. The earrings are lovely. Turquoise crosses with white gold. She's another artist who finds her supplies and her inspiration all over the place. Resourceful and creative.
There weren't as many customers this year as last, so there was more time for sitting. From outside E's room, you can see all the way down the row to the back of the property, and across the front parking lot and the lawn on the west side of the house.
You can see that CL is limping. Her legs are giving her a lot of trouble lately, especially going up stairs. She works long days, doing what should be the job of an assistant manager. Last Sunday, as we were getting ready for Breakfast, a rucus broke out down crack alley. A woman who doesn't live there was trying to kick down a guy's door. She wouldn't stop, so CL had to go yell at her and send her away. Just as the woman was driving off, someone came running around the corner from another row shouting for CL to come right away. Somebody had been maced and hit with a baseball bat. Yelling wasn't going to fix that one, so she called the cops. She said later that she felt badly about that. It was the first time she'd actually had to call the cops. She's a person people depend on and she thrives on it. She's 71 years old.
You can see that PA is really showing now. Four foot something, with a child's face and delicate frame. She has a couple of kids already, in someone else's custody, but she's expecting this new one with joy and hope. She and her man really love each other and this is such a wonderful thing for them. They've asked CL to be Grandma and she was shopping the yard sale today for things for the baby and for their home. But you can see in her eyes that she's not taking care of herself - around her eyes that she's not given up some things she shouldn't have been doing in the first place, certainly not pregnant. You wonder if she'll get to bring the baby home.
You can see that U has been drinking more than he should. He's on a few meds for serious health stuff and the drinking makes everything worse. His breathing and his circulation are getting so bad he's afraid to take showers now in case he falls, and he finds it hard to stand up once he's in the tub. He bought a couple of things today for grandbabies he never sees.
You can see the bow of the roof of the rooms down the row. The broken windows. The cat with the crooked head.
You can hear H talking about how now the place has been sold they don't know what the new owners are going to do with it. You don't know whether it's true, because you've heard the same thing so many times and it's always turned out to be baseless.
You hear a couple of people talking about what happened the other day when the power was turned off again for most of the day because the bill hadn't been paid. You hear several versions with blame being placed in different quarters, but after about 7 hours with no power, everybody'd been worried about their fridges.
And you start to see everything through a veil of vulnerability. Everywhere you look, vulnerability. Tenuousness. Health and family and infrastructure and hope. And you start to worry just a little. How can it keep on like this? How long can it continue?
And you start to think, "Not much longer." You start to think this might be the last time you sit here, in the sun, outside E's room seeing these smiles and these walls and the broken barbeque and A driving by, waving, and G strolling past with his hands clasped behind his back, smiling that quiet smile, and you start to grieve. Grieve for something that hasn't even happened yet and that you can't even name. But something that suddenly seems inevitable.
Today was a fun day. Light and friendly and comfortable and homey. Hanging around at the Motel for several hours with nothing to do but talk and listen and watch.
But it's somehow left me sad. I've found this seed of foreshadowing planted in my gut. I'm worried. Worried that such a precious little enclave of humanity, truest true imperfect and lovely humanity, is under siege and failing. Worried that we're losing our hopeful, infuriating, contentious, embracing, wounded, unique, fractured family. That we've lost it already and just haven't got the word yet.
That another moment like Doo Wah Diddy can't possibly ever happen again and maybe the reason it happened at all is so that we'll have something wonderful to look back on when it's all gone.
I'm not even sure where this is coming from, and maybe I'm just tired. But right now I feel like we've lost.
I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning.
r
It was cloudy and cool, so I've only got a minor sunburn this year. Wore better sandals, didn't get up 'til 7, wore a hat. These are the things I learned last year. Applied knowledge is a wonderful thing.
I don't think we made quite as much dosh this year, but that's not really the point. (Although I'm informed that, according to our "financial umbrella", we're in the hole to the tune of $84. I think we made that much, at least.) (Probably.) (After the hot dogs are paid for.)
A few of us were on the lawn at the Motel from 7:30 until about 2:30. There was lots of help to set things up. There are always people around who need to earn community service hours and CL finds work for them where she can.
A few dissolute souls (you know who you are) dragged in a couple of hours later, recovering from a late night out at a Leonard Cohen concert and a long drive home. They stayed later to help clear up.
We had hot dogs and drinks and face painting. I got a ukulele on my cheek. With music notes.
BL and I brought our ukes and had a jam session of sorts with H, who can really play the guitar. He has a drum machine which, for we strumming newbies, was a great thing. He gave us a chord progression and we followed. It was a lot of fun. A Lot! Loved it. Best part of the day. H. had a health scare earlier this year that I didn't write about, and he seems to be recovered and making plans. Beautiful man.
We set up the finger pinching tent outside E's room again and had a cooler of drinks, a tank of coffee, a picnic table and a barbeque for the dogs. The barbeque is one CL got for free from somewhere and it works just fine as long as you don't open the lid all the way. Then it falls off. Makes an impressive crashbang on the parking lot. Ask me how I know.
The highlight of the day for E was a visit from a local musician who's visited us a couple of times. She has his picture on her fridge and his CD in the player. He came by today and brought his guitar expressly for the purpose of singing a duet with her. "Doo Wah Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Doo." (None of which my spellchecker objects to. Interesting.) She sang full throated and joyful with such animation, smiling and gesturing, all three times through the song. Such a grace filled moment. He stood chatting outside her door for a while afterwards with his own voice blasting out from the stereo indoors. I wondered what that was like.
A couple of friends who used to live at the Motel came along and set up a sale of their own closer to the road, which was cool. The more the merrier. I bought a Toni Braxton CD from them. Love Toni Braxton.
We missed one friend today, who moved out last week. She and her man split up. Sad. I like them both quite a lot and I was sorry to hear about how things were going.
K and R turned up, wheeling across the wet grass to come say hi. K makes jewellery and she made me some earrings. Now I have to get my ears pierced. That was the deal. The earrings are lovely. Turquoise crosses with white gold. She's another artist who finds her supplies and her inspiration all over the place. Resourceful and creative.
There weren't as many customers this year as last, so there was more time for sitting. From outside E's room, you can see all the way down the row to the back of the property, and across the front parking lot and the lawn on the west side of the house.
You can see that CL is limping. Her legs are giving her a lot of trouble lately, especially going up stairs. She works long days, doing what should be the job of an assistant manager. Last Sunday, as we were getting ready for Breakfast, a rucus broke out down crack alley. A woman who doesn't live there was trying to kick down a guy's door. She wouldn't stop, so CL had to go yell at her and send her away. Just as the woman was driving off, someone came running around the corner from another row shouting for CL to come right away. Somebody had been maced and hit with a baseball bat. Yelling wasn't going to fix that one, so she called the cops. She said later that she felt badly about that. It was the first time she'd actually had to call the cops. She's a person people depend on and she thrives on it. She's 71 years old.
You can see that PA is really showing now. Four foot something, with a child's face and delicate frame. She has a couple of kids already, in someone else's custody, but she's expecting this new one with joy and hope. She and her man really love each other and this is such a wonderful thing for them. They've asked CL to be Grandma and she was shopping the yard sale today for things for the baby and for their home. But you can see in her eyes that she's not taking care of herself - around her eyes that she's not given up some things she shouldn't have been doing in the first place, certainly not pregnant. You wonder if she'll get to bring the baby home.
You can see that U has been drinking more than he should. He's on a few meds for serious health stuff and the drinking makes everything worse. His breathing and his circulation are getting so bad he's afraid to take showers now in case he falls, and he finds it hard to stand up once he's in the tub. He bought a couple of things today for grandbabies he never sees.
You can see the bow of the roof of the rooms down the row. The broken windows. The cat with the crooked head.
You can hear H talking about how now the place has been sold they don't know what the new owners are going to do with it. You don't know whether it's true, because you've heard the same thing so many times and it's always turned out to be baseless.
You hear a couple of people talking about what happened the other day when the power was turned off again for most of the day because the bill hadn't been paid. You hear several versions with blame being placed in different quarters, but after about 7 hours with no power, everybody'd been worried about their fridges.
And you start to see everything through a veil of vulnerability. Everywhere you look, vulnerability. Tenuousness. Health and family and infrastructure and hope. And you start to worry just a little. How can it keep on like this? How long can it continue?
And you start to think, "Not much longer." You start to think this might be the last time you sit here, in the sun, outside E's room seeing these smiles and these walls and the broken barbeque and A driving by, waving, and G strolling past with his hands clasped behind his back, smiling that quiet smile, and you start to grieve. Grieve for something that hasn't even happened yet and that you can't even name. But something that suddenly seems inevitable.
Today was a fun day. Light and friendly and comfortable and homey. Hanging around at the Motel for several hours with nothing to do but talk and listen and watch.
But it's somehow left me sad. I've found this seed of foreshadowing planted in my gut. I'm worried. Worried that such a precious little enclave of humanity, truest true imperfect and lovely humanity, is under siege and failing. Worried that we're losing our hopeful, infuriating, contentious, embracing, wounded, unique, fractured family. That we've lost it already and just haven't got the word yet.
That another moment like Doo Wah Diddy can't possibly ever happen again and maybe the reason it happened at all is so that we'll have something wonderful to look back on when it's all gone.
I'm not even sure where this is coming from, and maybe I'm just tired. But right now I feel like we've lost.
I guess I'll see how I feel in the morning.
r
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