Louis Auguste Lepère: Breaking Waves, September Tide (1901)

" … just gravity or something similar having her way with us again."

If I am to take away any notion from this discontented summer, let it be the conviction that things seem like they will never be any different until a slight difference appears one day; then, things can never be the same again. This abrupt nature of change belies the idea that it might occur gradually, according to the Boiled Frog Theory. However, even in the Boiled Frog Theory, the frog has no sensation of boiling until it is too far gone to be rescued. He, too, senses no change until it "suddenly" becomes inexorable. Then, that familiar lifestyle's already over, never to return. This seems the truer nature of life, of living. We might be forever changing, but we only sense we're changing on relatively rare occasions after it's already inexorable. This is another face of Grace.

Those who claim to be masters of change are probably lying to themselves. They might feel resilient and agile until they are blindsided again. Then, they'll feel anything but masterful and hope nobody noticed what they were experiencing. Their grimace might come across as a grin, but they know the difference inside. We try to keep up appearances lest our carefully maintained false premises become too obvious. Change has her way with us, and nobody has ever once knowledgeably consented to the experience, even when they prayed for some sort of deliverance. It was another kind of salvation they sought, certainly not the type they got.

Two years ago this month, The Muse decided to pursue a change. The Villa's brick front had always irked us. Added—probably in the seventies—it never matched the rest of the architecture of this grand old house. It looked like an obviously false premise, framing the front porch as it obviously shouldn't have ever been framed, so she proclaimed that we were going to replace that brickwork, which was full of compression fractures and sagging northward, with a front more like the original: simple pillars atop sculpted concrete bases. We found a concrete contractor and set about securing the necessary permits. The whole project quickly turned to shit. The contractor kept stalling, saying the permitting was delaying initiation. We focused him on replacing the south side sidewalk as a test of his performance, and that test, too, turned to shit. By winter, we had a permanently crooked south side sidewalk with adjacent landscaping still upset, and that contractor had disappeared with thousands of deposit dollars. We learned later that he'd gotten involved with meth.

We searched forever before finally finding an engineering firm capable of and willing to take on the job of specifying the work. We got their report almost precisely a year after The Muse declared her intention. Then, we were looking at the end of another concrete season without a replacement contractor. We'd contacted several, but each defected. A couple even came over and took measurements but never returned with estimates. I began to feel as if this project would never commence. As if to goose the Gods, I took down the porch ceiling last Fall, hoping against something that my effort might break the clog. I ended up with a porch full of sawn-up ceiling kindling and no porch light. Fast forward to this May, when our carpenter called to say he might have found that elusive concrete contractor. He brought him by, and I cross-examined him for over an hour, hoping to find confirmation that he was neither a crook nor a disappearing act. He convinced me.

When we went to resurrect the never-completed permit, we found that the city had changed the standards their permissions insisted on. Yup, our engineer's report referenced an earlier release. Fortunately, the engineering firm agreed to update their analysis to more current standards without additional charges. Then, I relied upon our carpenter, who had earlier agreed to steward this project but didn't. During his busy season, I couldn't get him to submit his estimate for his part of the project. Last week, apoplectic, I reassigned responsibility for wrangling this effort to Kurt, our painter. Our carpenter gratefully relented his ineffective control, and by the end of that afternoon, we'd resubmitted our earlier permit application. The Muse had even managed to get the permitting manager to reapply our earlier outlay on the permit that was never reviewed or approved but canceled due to our carpenter's inattention. The following day, the permit was approved, perhaps setting a record for turnaround for a local building permit application.

So, things stay the same as if they will never change until something happens, and nothing can ever be the same again. I called the players and was surprised and delighted that they seemed to have openings in their schedules over the upcoming weeks. It looks as though this eyesore will be replaced before the end of this season and certainly before winter sets in again. What an overlong and oddly strange trip it's been so far. I do not dare to imagine that the actual project will prove much less strange than its lead-up has already been, but something's BustinLoose. The damned dam's breached, and no force in this universe could ever reverse its course. Once the inexorable kicks in, we're finally only along for the ride. We will, of course, find ample justification for further remorse as this change, too, makes fools out of our expectations. We might discover delight, but probably only through appreciating what we never wanted and would have never really intended. We will smile as if we had been masters of change when it was just gravity or something similar having her way with us again.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Grace, #PureSchmaltz