NUTS AND BOLTS

I’m at the Home Depot today, in the hardware aisle. A grizzled, gray-haired workman, 60’s, is rummaging thru the nuts and bolts…and he grumbles, “I shouldn’t have to do this shit!”

I realized he wasn’t speaking to me. He’d realized a truth so fundamental to him it demanded utterance. But I heard him…and laughed out loud.

“None of us should have to do this shit!” I said. And then we both laughed out loud. That was a genuine, human exchange between two strangers…not all that common these days…at least in my reality.

By “this shit”, we meant our mutual home repairs…but also (and I think we both came from this wider perspective) our daily lives. Lives becoming increasingly problematic; demanding more effort, more time, more attention, more compromise…more acceptance.

I do hope all this will change for the better, in time to come. Yet I respect the possibility that it may not…that life may continue to challenge us…may even raise the stakes.

Soooo…our quality of life may soon be determined by our ability to cope…and endure…and improvise…and forgive…and learn…

and EVOLVE

25 June 2009