Hanns Lautensack: Landscape with the Town on a River
and the Cottage between Trees (1551)

" … purposefully moving forward again."

Once stuck, things tend to stay stuck forever—or almost forever. Points of Convergence emerge. Who knows from where? It's as if stuckness becomes disgusted with itself, weary of the abiding irresolution, to finally take its fate into its own fists, for stuckness seems a wasting state, one inherently incapable of sustaining itself forever. It appears to possess some self-respect such that it cannot abide its own idleness and finally injects some mobility into its existence. However this happens, one can be sure this will happen regardless of how hopeless any context seems. There's always space for dreams, which take up very little space, though dreams seem infinitely expandable. To have one might be to hold the whole universe because with them on hand, anything seems possible.

Since my shoulder seized up in April—it's now August—I fell into a period of stuckness. I've managed to maintain my writing schedule and shuffle through many of my responsibilities, but I felt haunted, not free to range or roam as I might have preferred. I deferred many actions and set most of my aspirations aside pending resolution. I was under the impression—which I would have sworn was not mistaken—that only idleness, rest, would cure my affliction, though progress remained invisible. I took my pills and kept my counsel until I visited the Immediate Care clinic, where I was encouraged to continue my hopeful idleness. After six weeks, I scheduled an acupuncture visit and found irresolution waiting for me there, too. The practitioners all seemed to prescribe more patience, which invisibly became a stuckness that migrated into every aspect of my life.

My emergence began this week with a visit to my physician. I do not know why I decided that my doctor should have been the last person I consulted for this shoulder condition. He's challenging to connect with now that he's adopted a portal, an "improvement" for him, perhaps, because it encourages would-be patients to try anything besides failing to connect with him again. Whatever the reason, that decision now looks foolish, for he quickly confirmed the Immediate Care doctor's diagnosis but prescribed a different treatment. He insisted that patience would never cure this ailment. He offered two choices: physical therapy, which might or might not improve anything over time, or a quick injection which would, in short order, completely resolve the problem with little likelihood of a recurrence. Easy choice. He ordered me to take it easy for seventy-two hours, then gradually add more activities until I'd be cured by the end of two weeks.

I left the doctor's office little changed. My arm was, if anything, more sore than it had been before. I returned home, where I crashed and burned, sleeping for four or five hours of heavy dreaming. I awoke feeling different. That afternoon, The Muse left for another conversation somewhere and a doctor's appointment. When she returned, she reported meeting a woman who might want to join her campaign. She's media savvy and a marketing professional. The Muse would trade some consulting for her campaign services.

The week before, Kurt, our painter, had passed me a list of engineering contractors. Our project to refurbish The Villa's front porch had been stuck in permit Hell since last October, waiting for a thus-far non-existent construction engineer to approve the plans. The next afternoon, I called the first name on the list and connected with an engineer who figured he could resolve the clog quickly on the back of a cocktail napkin.

We were still short a concrete contractor, but that morning when I went to drop off our glass recyclables, an acquaintance was volunteering there. I asked how his new home was coming along, and he reported that he had been interviewing concrete contractors to replace a crumbling floor. I mentioned that I'd been looking for a competent concrete contractor since last fall, and he passed along the name of one that had impressed him. I called, and they'll be by later this morning to assess for an estimate. I called our carpenter to let him know that we might be ready to go on that long-stalled porch work and that Kurt, our painter, was scheduled to be here mid-next month, painting the long-neglected backside of the place.

In a little more than a day, most of the clogs in our lives seemed to have evaporated. This enormously reassuring experience reinforces my belief in Convergence. No matter how stuck, hopeless, or endless any experience seems, that stuckness appears destined to do itself in. At some point—I've long contended that it's at the least convenient time—the blockages will fall apart. This universe remains in motion regardless of how parts of it might temporarily seize. Those stucknesses and blockages cannot hold forever. They will inevitably resolve themselves. The Muse's campaign will now start moving more purposefully and skillfully. The front porch will finally come together. The embarrassing backside of The Villa will be fully repainted before winter sets in. This part of the universe seems to finally be purposefully moving forward again. I guess it was always destined to.

©2023 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Honing, #PureSchmaltz