It's with some diffidence that I approach this space today, which for the last year has been my comfortable home. My momentum somewhat dissipated, I look around at the space and ask what is it for? I feel a formality as if I have to knock on the door, wipe my shoes on the mat, and wait to be invited to sit down.
I've written a year of direct encounter accounts, but now...? Like many autodidacts, I am insecure about the proper venue and register for my speech. How in this blog, I wonder, can I present a presence/adventure/lastingness (PAL) way of life without becoming didactic, contemplate a God-in-love framework without becoming dogmatic, or find or build a community explicitly dedicated to hospitality, friendship and exploration without becoming pushy? That may be this year's query.
In the meantime, you, old plumbing system in my house, are trying my patience. That leak of water out the back of the wall and down into the basement whenever I take a shower has got to be stopped. Possible rot, a water supply for ants and other pests (already I'm nervous about carpenter ants): these are good reasons to act quickly. I can get access to the back of the shower wall through an opening in a cupboard under my sink. Crawl in, get some padding, crawl in again, twist and turn to see through and up. Turn on the faucets and see water dribble down the stucco (?) interior surface.
Nothing, nothing, ahh, no, wait, a glistening, a dark path, a drip, a stream.
So, turn off the water supply to the house, take out and examine the valves, find the name of the one which sends water to the shower or the faucet (without the name, one feels like a fool: 'I want a...,you know the thing that....'), try to figure out how the diverter (three-valve shower-tub diverter) works, clean, readjust, reinsert, test, watch it still leaking. Change the valves, change the O-rings, change whatever, anything, No dice. Long moments leaning against a cupboard thinking: is there one leak or two (or more) and under what conditions?
Go to store, buy lots of stuff that looks like it might help. Talk to clerk who confesses ignorance (and dislike) of all plumbing. Try my fancy new replacement parts. It turns out I can have a shower or a bath but not both (with the same fixtures). Rescue discarded washers and reinsert. Ah, restored bi-functionality.
All this time crawling into someplace not much bigger than an animal's den, and then pulling myself out, then in again, craning my neck, hitting my head, going downstairs to turn the water off, and again to turn it on. Blood on the forehead the requisite offering. More long ponderings, indistinguishable from fatigue. One leak identified and fixed; only not the diverter. I can have a tub but forget a shower. Perhaps that washer...
I've been in this house 30+ years and still I find the old shortcuts of the previous owner, an Italian florist who moved the house to its current location at the top of a slope when he sold out his greenhouses at the bottom of the slope to a McDonalds. He and his wife lived and cooked down in the basement. In the backyard, a large garden and a grape arbor. Oh, and lots of scattered sheets or buried masses of concrete.
Still, the weather is beautiful. There's a small peach tree on the porch I bought at the home improvement store along with plumbing tchotchkes. The tag says it will produce fruit the first year. Well, I'm not impatient, but if it can, I can.
I've written a year of direct encounter accounts, but now...? Like many autodidacts, I am insecure about the proper venue and register for my speech. How in this blog, I wonder, can I present a presence/adventure/lastingness (PAL) way of life without becoming didactic, contemplate a God-in-love framework without becoming dogmatic, or find or build a community explicitly dedicated to hospitality, friendship and exploration without becoming pushy? That may be this year's query.
In the meantime, you, old plumbing system in my house, are trying my patience. That leak of water out the back of the wall and down into the basement whenever I take a shower has got to be stopped. Possible rot, a water supply for ants and other pests (already I'm nervous about carpenter ants): these are good reasons to act quickly. I can get access to the back of the shower wall through an opening in a cupboard under my sink. Crawl in, get some padding, crawl in again, twist and turn to see through and up. Turn on the faucets and see water dribble down the stucco (?) interior surface.
Nothing, nothing, ahh, no, wait, a glistening, a dark path, a drip, a stream.
So, turn off the water supply to the house, take out and examine the valves, find the name of the one which sends water to the shower or the faucet (without the name, one feels like a fool: 'I want a...,you know the thing that....'), try to figure out how the diverter (three-valve shower-tub diverter) works, clean, readjust, reinsert, test, watch it still leaking. Change the valves, change the O-rings, change whatever, anything, No dice. Long moments leaning against a cupboard thinking: is there one leak or two (or more) and under what conditions?
Go to store, buy lots of stuff that looks like it might help. Talk to clerk who confesses ignorance (and dislike) of all plumbing. Try my fancy new replacement parts. It turns out I can have a shower or a bath but not both (with the same fixtures). Rescue discarded washers and reinsert. Ah, restored bi-functionality.
All this time crawling into someplace not much bigger than an animal's den, and then pulling myself out, then in again, craning my neck, hitting my head, going downstairs to turn the water off, and again to turn it on. Blood on the forehead the requisite offering. More long ponderings, indistinguishable from fatigue. One leak identified and fixed; only not the diverter. I can have a tub but forget a shower. Perhaps that washer...
I've been in this house 30+ years and still I find the old shortcuts of the previous owner, an Italian florist who moved the house to its current location at the top of a slope when he sold out his greenhouses at the bottom of the slope to a McDonalds. He and his wife lived and cooked down in the basement. In the backyard, a large garden and a grape arbor. Oh, and lots of scattered sheets or buried masses of concrete.
Still, the weather is beautiful. There's a small peach tree on the porch I bought at the home improvement store along with plumbing tchotchkes. The tag says it will produce fruit the first year. Well, I'm not impatient, but if it can, I can.
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