47) The Problem That Didn’t Need Solving and The Problem That Did

You eyeballed the clock. You had ten more minutes until ‘go time’. Ever since the massive wave of bats took a nosedive into your chimney the night before, you had been waiting to film them. Surely they’d be back the following evening.

At 8:30pm you and your daughter were outside positioning the tripod just so. You had to get a good shot of this. No one was ever going to truly believe you and honestly who could blame them?! You were just thankful that you had Beverly with you the night before… because honestly you probably wouldn’t have even believed your own eyes if there hadn’t been a second set to verify that what you had just witnessed was not a lucid fever dream.

You wound up placing the tripod right in front of David’s workshop facing southwest: the money shot. This was going to be that crazy video that spread like wildfire over a match factory next to a tinder box.

You took a few test videos… you were not going to fuck this one up. And at 8:37 the recorder was rolling. At 8:55pm you and the family walked across the street to sit on the raised base of the neighbor’s retaining wall. You all stared at the chimney. It was 9:00pm the night before when you saw the bats disappear into the bowels of the six story tall flume.

You waited. You stared. The kids started getting restless and then David said what everyone was thinking, “Hey Vaness… I don’t think we’re seeing any bats tonight.” Save for the lone one you watched hovering over the chimney before wheeling off in another direction, he was right.

“What the fuck… I don’t get it. I figured they’d be in there at least all spring…”

“I guess not.”

“Our problem was going to be a freaking solution with the viral video I was going to get… now we’re just back at a non-problem…”

“I’m not seeing the problem there.”

“Exactly… that IS the problem: there’s no problem. There’s no fucking bats. Which is kind of hilarious… the only problem I didn’t want solved right away went and took care of itself. Go figure.”

David shrugged and the kids ran off disappearing one by one, into the church.

“Hey universe… I really, really, really don’t want that leak in the sanctuary fixed… that would be just so terrible if that problem took care of itself too… I would just hate not being able to get that fucking lift out here again. Total tragedy..” you sarcastically said while looking at the chimney (devoid of any activity) one last time.

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“I’m getting my ass absolutely kicked out here,” David said doing his best to catch his breath. It was hot outside and he hadn’t made much progress. Another project you assumed would take an hour or two tops was going to be at least a full day. Which was all it could take on account of the rental agreement. It would not be an easy day either, at least not for David.

“Why? What’s wrong?” You asked doing your best to hide your disappointment.

“The ground is just so compacted and filled with rocks… and the grass is so thick that the blades aren’t getting into the ground… this thing is just tossing me around with it.”

The tiller was heavy. Probably a solid 100 pounds if not more. It was big and unruly. What you had thought would be as simple as a leisurely lawn mowing looked more like a lawn style rodeo, your husband doing his best to hang onto the huge tiller as it bucked him and pulled him and bounced over the lawn.

The plan had been to tear out the entire front lawn. Who wanted to contend with mowing when you had 7,000 square feet inside to contend with? Not you. You were going to fill the entire space with wildflowers. You imagined picking beautiful bouquets in the late spring, filling your home with old mason jars and thrift store vases filled with multicolored bouquets. You pictured honey bees and hummingbirds buzzing over your manmade flower meadow. All you had to do was get the lawn out…

“And you can’t use the tiller over the gas line…” you had told David the day before.

“Ok… so… are you just going to put some mulch over where the gas line is and use that as a path?”

“Ummmm no. That’s going to look really strange having a separate path a foot from the main path.”

David sighed…

“So I figured that you could just hand dig this part… because the people that marked the line told me that you can hand dig… just no machines… so…”

“So you want me to dig this all out… by hand???”

“I mean… I’m in a sling so…”

David was exasperated. You couldn’t really blame him. Despite the complications that had arisen from losing a lot of your independence and ability to complete the simplest of tasks you normally took for granted… you were thrilled that you didn’t have to hand dig shit. That was something you were a-ok with.

“Vaness… that’s a lot of digging… this isn’t exactly easy to dig through either…”

“I mean it’s less than ten feet long…”

“And you said that I can’t get within three feet of the gas on either side?”

“Correct.”

“That’s actually a pretty big area…”

“I have faith in you.”

A few hours into till the next day though and David tapped out of not only hand digging, but tackling the entire slice of front lawn to the right of the front walkway.

“I’m dying out here Vaness… there’s no way I can do this. I think what we have to do is kill the lawn over here first… we can put down some tarps or something, then revisit this in the fall or next spring. The grass is so thick and this dirt is so compacted that the tiller won’t work over here,” he panted.

“Well yeah it’s compacted… no one has probably ever dug up anything since the gas line went in.”

“And today is not the day that we break the streak for time spent ‘untouched,’ so…” David said wiping sweat off his brow.

“I mean it’s going to look really weird like this… but if you can’t get the lawn up, you can’t get the lawn up. I definitely want it up though at some point.”

“Yup,” David said as he walked back to the tiller. You were pretty sure that David was hoping that that point would be when you were capable of hand digging your own shit. But he didn’t say so.

When David finished the yard the grass was mostly gone save for a few thick clumps anchored in by the lone tree’s roots. You wanted so badly to just yank those chunks out, but it was going to take a shovel and David had already announced that he was officially done with the front. He tapped out of that shit show and you really couldn’t blame him. The grass would hopefully be drowned out by the flowers… otherwise you’d be hand digging this at some point or another.

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There was still SO MUCH to do and despite so much being done… there were very few projects that were actually completed. Most were ‘worked on’ but not quite done. While never formally diagnosed you and David had a sneaking suspicion that you both had ADHD… all the signs were there… and this massive church was like a 70 foot tall case study for adderall. That and the fact that everything needed attention all at once…

You thought about an old cartoon you had watched with a boy walking by a dam… the dam had a leak. He popped his finger in to plug the leak and then another leak started elsewhere on the dam. He then used his other hand to plug that leak until a third, fourth, fifth and so on leak had sprung and he was using all of his fingers and all of his toes as well as the top of his head to plug the dam. You’re pretty sure the dam burst open and he went flying down a hill in a torrent of water. Luckily you were in a non-flood zone.

You often found yourself reminding yourself when you looked at the spray foam hanging out of the walls, or the growing number of project pieces of furniture you still had to sand and refinish, or the yard in different states of dissarray that it had taken you 14 years to get your prior home to the point that you wanted it. This was no little weekend warrior project you had taken on… this was an epic undertaking… and you had to go easy on yourself and the self imposed sky high expectations you were accustomed to berating yourself over.

Which just happened to be another lengthy project that you had begun to tackle when you moved in… fixing that negative naysayer in your head. Which also just happened to be the only project that you could accurately estimate some sort of timetable for completing: a long ass time.

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David taking a break by the tree (and probably wondering why he ever agreed to tearing out the front lawn). Tiller in the back left corner…