Balance Mon, 08 Oct 2007
You like me may have entertained the sterling question, "What's the craic." This chap who has penned his fair share of words over the past year suddenly has a place, a measure of time, and a reliable connection and yet the infrequency of posting remains. 'Tis a relief for yours truly to know that responsible agents are not breathing down this neck begging for new material or the dreaded three volume novel. In the midst of something close to normal and consistent living this chap is finding it difficult to find balance in my desire to stay connected through emails and updates. I am one that lives so deeply in relationship that to be unable to see your faces, experience the mystery and joy of all levels of communication as opposed to words on a page, therein lies the challenge. Life on the road robbed me of my grounding and in that time my writings and my connectedness to people thousands of miles away was everything. Now I spend my days with the same wonderful people, spend many of my hours expending myself to the goal of home production, and suddenly I am grounded in a different sphere. It it not that I do not care for those relationships that held me through long periods of change but now I must learn to live fully where I am and at the same time balance moments for maintaining those relationships in as full a sense as possible. I can see myself in writing this that a level of confusion may result so in future additions hopefully more clarity can be attained.
On the lighter side of life production of said house progresses at markable rate. I have added two new albums to Lovable Quirks displaying the finished work of our variably slanted roof. The experience was one I enjoyed immensely in the problem solving, adapatational, excitement rendering, swift knowledge building nature of the work. I have never so fully enjoyed a project experience. Whether 'twas hammering nail after nail, numbering in the thousands and resulting in only one sheepish blood blister despite; sitting atop a sharply angled roof as one might straddle a horse and wondering if my back end would come through unharmed; attaching beam after beam of wood as one might for a massive jigsaw except that here there was almost no consistency in size, shape, color, straightness, or any other ease bearing quality; continuing my exploration of the humorous side of the Polish language for the sake of chuckles from "el jefe" Mister Goose (known to me now as majster or piura gonski (goose feathers you may remember)); and the unquestioned independance I was afforded to make decisions about how the work was to be accomplished (our second carpenter Andrzej is on hiatus to Singapore for shipyard carpentry thereby leaving us tag alongs to make more decisions). The next stage now is to finish closing off the house in preparation for winter and then beginning the next enjoyable stage of floor production.
The only major difficulty in the midst of the joy of hammering nails and using a strug (don't know the name in English strangely enough) to shave off uneven bits of wood is the part of me that for a year got used to non stop travels. There are families about Poland that I wish to see and I'm not used to anything being in the way of that. The other day I recognized my impatience at thinking it could be weeks before we are at a place with the house that I can vamoose and my travel bug spot was fumin'. It revealed to me the necessity of this period in time here. I wish to forever have travel and the experience of a variety of people as a part of life but my desire for family and home in the future is one rooted in place. The great joys of life on the road do not outweigh my desire to know where home is and who home is with. I needed this project and time here with this wonderful family to readjust and be committed to life in one place. I can see that now and have had to give the travel bug inside me a good lickin' (no foul thoughts, it means rough it up a bit). When the time comes I will travel especially as Darek and Asia's baby was born only a week ago and my excitement is at the tremendous level to visit and have time with the baby as well as the family in this transition time. A side note on that level is that a baby could not be born into a more loving home. Darek and Asia are so genuine in their love and their desire to make their home a place of piece and welcoming that it gives me great joy to know that this gift straight from God's heart has come to them. For now I am here and I am committed to this project that will in the future provide a place to call home for many a family and perhaps a few needing missionaries (who dares remember ten marvelous Brazilians that God once sent this way).
Ok that will do it for now. I hope to be able to have greater consistency in doing this now. I am thinking of how to adapt it to being in one place as I haven't exciting travel stories to share but those from truly living as part of family.