How to Do It All : pt. 1

The Moon is a lady. Her face, slip­ping through veils of wisp-tailed clouds. It was as it was meant to be. Her, in her full­ness. Me, arched back in bed. The cool swell of her light, right where I might best spy, lying there com­fort­ably in my tan­gle of blankets.

I always, when I plan magic like this, assume that the right rit­ual will some­how spill from head. I trust The Uni­verse. We have this thing, you know. What I need will come to me. So that night, under Her full round­ness, I found myself lying in bed, whis­per­ing a love spell… can you believe it?! I hardly can myself.

***

I am a handy lady, let’s just say. So when the sheetrock bath­room ceil­ing began to crum­ble and fall down, I did not take the advice of friends (“Here’s the num­ber of a guy I know...”), but instead went to the home improve­ment store. I always, when I plan magic like this, assume the solu­tion will just fall into my lap. So I milled about the aisles for a bit when I came upon the 1’x1’ ceil­ing tiles. Ah ha! This has got to be a bil­lion times eas­ier than hang­ing dry­wall over­head! I have installed tongue and groove floor­ing before, so the con­cept was sim­i­lar. I was sassy with sat­is­fac­tion of my bril­liance. Who needs a guy!? I can do it all. 

Fast for­ward to Sat­ur­day. I’ve got a few of those babies hang­ing on the ceil­ing. It looks… like it’s all com­ing together. I take a break and drink cof­fee. I think, why does any­one need any­one? I snap a pic­ture of my progress, so I can file it away in my scrap­book for later. I am a god­dess. After this, I’m plan­ning to bake a loaf of bread, change the oil in my car and cro­chet a fuck­ing doily.

Halfway through my project the ceil­ing gets… wonky, let’s just say. I real­ize I should have made sure I was work­ing on a level sur­face. I was unpre­pared for how crooked the cor­ners of the room were. I start to won­der if it’s actu­ally a two-person job, hold­ing the end pieces up, which seem hell-bent on pulling all my work down. Every­thing, sud­denly, is get­ting really metaphorical.

And that’s of course when it hits me. A mes­sage from The Uni­verse. A peek into my future. And it’s super incon­ve­nient because I can’t leave to go write it down, I have to hold these damn tiles up till the glue cures. So I’m stand­ing on this lad­der. In my bath­room. Hold­ing up the ceil­ing. My kids are fight­ing over Gold­fish crack­ers in the other room. And I’m hav­ing a stroke of brilliance.

Along with this, though, a grow­ing aware­ness that my ceil­ing project is going to fail. For what­ever rea­son, the cor­ners are now start­ing to sag. I hear the glue creak­ing and moan­ing. I don’t have enough arms to save the work. I whis­per a lit­tle prayer, release my grip, step down off the lad­der and cover my neck as the ceil­ing falls down on me.

Some­times all you can do is all you can do.

***

After I cleaned up the mess in the bath­room and show­ered, I told the kids we were going to a restau­rant for din­ner. This is a treat, if only because it can be har­row­ing to take both my wee babes to din­ner by myself. Mama needs a mar­garita was encoded in “How about Mex­i­can?” They were thrilled by the idea, so we went.

After a lovely din­ner, which they both ate like peo­ple even, the wait­ress stopped at my table to com­pli­ment me on how beau­ti­ful and well behaved my kids were (they really were inor­di­nately good). “You’re so blessed. SO BLESSED.” She repeated as if I needed the emphasis.

We all walked hand in hand to the car. The Uni­verse was prod­ding me again. A pur­pose tucked away in mind, the bless­ings of two small hands in my hands. I ori­ented myself, search­ing for the Moon in the night. Give me the love I need, I implored her full face a week ago. There she was, a wan­ing grin in the sky.

Tomor­row I’ll call a guy about the ceiling.