Things are topsy turvy around here. When are they not? It’s sort of like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time.

Shit happens, time is a fickle bitch, and I can’t seem to keep my finger on the pulse of life.

We can stop our watches, but not time itself. Maybe the only thing that makes a difference is our unique way of being in the world. 

And by the way, if it seems as if half the beds in our house are perpetually stacked on the back porch, it’s because they are. 

I can only imagine what the neighbors think?

The deal is we’re pushing to finish the last phase of the most prolonged remodels of all time. I made a whole baby in less time than it has taken to spruce up this old homestead and it’s still not done.

Our final labor, if you will, involves the carpeting and painting of the last two rooms in the house that haven’t been updated in twenty-five years. Try not to judge. I’m Swedish, chocolate and cheese are my thing, not housekeeping. 

The cluttered master suite and the storage unit, I mean the guest room, which has become a storage unit, are getting a much-needed facelift, but we’re finding it difficult to remove all the wrinkles.

The guest room is more like a rotating dormitory for the children who wander in and out but can’t seem to put a stake in the ground. Julie and Nic lived here for the better part of a year. Kelley and Tim come and go every few months, whereas Tony and Thalita visit occasionally. No pressure. Dante lived here when the floors were being resurfaced.

The point being, my four kids, have stashed all the things they can’t live without in the nook and crannies of this room since they graduated high school. Try as I may, they refuse to take ownership of their own shit.  

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

A mid-week garage sale followed by a clandestine trip to the Good Will. 

Exactly.

Dante and Larry removed all the heavy furniture from both rooms and stacked them on the back patio before Dante had to head down south for a week of installing and painting solar panels.

And then a small kink delayed the plans.

Larry and I got invited to Lake Tahoe for an impromptu weekend with old friends, which means the furniture will remain outside for the better part of a week. We’re retired, and that translates to a lot of unexpected delays and detours. 

We can’t be in two places at once, nor would we want to be, and friends take the win every time.

Twenty-five years might seem like a long increment of time, especially when measuring the span between household maintenance, or the length of a friendship. But it’s really just an illusion because, as we know, time is relative.

But I digress.

By some unforeseen miracle, Mary and Jim, Phyllis and Greg, Jill and Steve, Larry and me all had the same weekend free, and we grabbed it up as if the last piece of bacon. This is the first time we’ve all been together in months, and we’re hungry for this time. 

The thing is when we’re together, it’s as if no time has passed, or all the time we’ve spent together compresses upon itself, and I can’t discern this moment from all the moments that came before. 

You know what I mean?

Comfort settles into my weary bones because I feel loved, as if my worth, my efficacy, dare I say my very existence, is validated. I think it’s not only rare but a privilege to be with people who make you feel this way.

And I can’t help but wonder how I make people feel when they are with me?

It’s as if, once again, my life is sweet, sovereign, a safe haven from the precariousness and fear of an unpredictable mid-COVID world. 

When this crew gets together, we rarely go out to eat because half of us (the half I’m not a part of) are phenomenal cooks and the rest of us know how to chop, grate, and do the dishes. We prefer the intimacy of home, the flavors of our favorite wines, and a slab of hand-rubbed tri-tip on the grill. 

I consider laughter holy, sacred if you will, especially when lounging on the sofa, feet prompted up on the coffee table, entertaining conversations that go into the wee hours of the night but solve nothing.

Mary likes to hike, and she had us tromping through the stunning forest behind her home by mid-morning. The altitude was killer, but corny as it sounds, the sun was smiling down on us. And we felt it, every single one of us, the immense blue of the sky, the potent smell of pine, or how each of us brought the dust from the trail home.

We used to live within a one-mile radius of each other; for years, we swapped patios for dining, sometimes several times a month. Together we vacationed, worshiped, and celebrated birthdays, graduations, and the marriages of our children. As the years passed, most of the couples migrated out of the area, closer to grandchildren and family. It was an adjustment with the sale of each house. 

Larry and I are the only holdouts. In all fairness, our children moved across the street, and another one still lives with us! So there’s that.

These get-togethers are now few and far between. We realize how we spend our time is becoming as important as who we spend our time with. I think we discovered this with the painful loss of each parent, which makes you reevaluate the purpose and complexities of the time you have left.

If time is a resource, then kindness is our wealth, and friendship our fortune.

I don’t want to waste time on people who make me feel unwelcome, unwanted, or unappreciated. Do you? That’s why they don’t sell friends at Walmart. 

On our last evening, we packed up a gourmet picnic basket with select wines, deli cheeses, crackers, seasoned shrimp, chips, and dip. We headed to the beach to enjoy a summer concert, settling our beach chairs in a row, we lounged by the pristine waters of Lake Tahoe, listening to the music of Joy and Madness. 

Sounds a lot like life, our weekend, and the complicated relationship we beget within ourselves.

Larry denied my plea to extend the weekend, I’m sure Mary and Jim let out a collective sigh of relief, and we were on the road by 9:00 am. Back to the Bay Area, to the final phase of our home improvement project, and the decluttering of our lives. 

By 2:00 pm, I find myself sweating profusely. Not because I’m working like a mad dog, I am, but we had to complete this blasted project during the hottest week of the entire summer. All I have to do is raise an eyebrow, and I’m perspiring as if Rocky Balboa in the tenth round. 

I’m not exaggerating.

While I’m trying to locate a clean dust rag with which to wipe my sweat, I hear a loud crash coming from the general vicinity of the garage, which could only mean Larry is relocating something, and it’s not going well.

I say, “What the hell happened?” Because I’m cultured and compassionate.

I find him leaning over one of those extra-large Uhaul boxes, which is now spilled out onto the floor of the garage, and he says, “Could you help me pick this up.” He sounds demanding instead of conciliatory, and it irks me.

As we’re shifting the box so it sits upright, I hear shards of broken glass settle in the bottom of the container. I sigh and say, “Did you hear all that broken glass?”

“It’s fine.”

“That’s like saying the stock market is fine!” There may have been a testiness to my tone, and it doesn’t help that every pore of my body is leaking profusely. 

I shake my head. This was the final box I still had to unpack from phase one of the remodel, and most of the contents are delicate. I had it tucked away in the back closet of the guest room, and I admit I was avoiding it like the plague. 

The thing is, I have limited storage options in this house, and the things sequestered in this particular box have sentimental value but lack purpose.

Sounds as if I’m describing myself?

Things like the glass swan cake toppers from our wedding which have morphed into fragments of unrecognizable shards. Or the superfluous sets of antique salt and pepper shakers I collected through the years. I was going to use them to create a unique chess set but never actually completed the project. There were tea cups from Grandma’s collection, a tooth fairy box, a small perfume bottle from my aunt, and such.

Anyway, it’s all in shards, and no amount of super glue is going to fix that. 

I suppose I could scan for the positive because my worries over storage have just been ruthlessly resolved. So I should thank Larry?

I didn’t think so either, but I’ll acknowledge the blessing, if not begrudgingly.

The truth is much of life is delicate and can break as easily as those glass swans. Relationships, marriages, even our health can shatter unexpectedly. Jobs and opportunities come and go, but true friendships are resilient, and they withstand the test of time.

Let me paint a picture for you. Larry is walking around with a paintbrush in his left hand and a bucket of paint in his right. He has smeared dove grey paint across his upper lip and under his nose as if a mustache.

It’s hard to take him seriously. 

He’s painting over decades of dust and grime while I’m disposing of the things that no longer have a place in our lives.

I’ve been going through drawers and drawers of memorabilia, and it’s exhausting. There is one question floating through my head as I shift through old photographs, thank you notes, and mementos. 

Who will take ownership of all this shit?

What do I do with a framed picture of the cat I cherished as a kid, a beautiful red tin filled with bobby pins from my grandmother, or the bounded manuscript of my first novel that I sent cousin Vicky and she wrote on the cover, “find a publisher.” The hat and paddle from the year I pledged Alpha Phi, an old teddy bear I used to sleep with, and a note from my deceased aunt thanking me for the words I put together for my uncle’s funeral. There are so many cards. I sat on the floor and read them all. I admit to keeping every single one from my mother.

I feel this dull ache forming in my heart, and I stop to consider why this is so?

I think it has to do with the passage of time. 

Our lived experiences, our memories, and our relationships can not be effectively passed on to our children. You can’t inherit feelings, just things, and most of those things were only important to me for reasons all my own. The kids don’t need, want, or remember the things that give me pause.

So I keep asking myself, “Who will take ownership of all this shit?” 

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

A mid-week garage sale followed by a clandestine trip to the Good Will. 

And I’ll just have to learn to live with the dull ache in my heart.

I’m Living in the Gap, mourning the passage of time, what are you doing?