awe(love)struck

The mail has been pretty sparse lately.  No big loss, really – the average piece of paper mail these days is just trying to sell us something.

But yesterday, I received a FedEx box far more weighty to me than to the USPS scale that determined its shipping cost.  It was from some dearly beloved, a second family, postmarked Amsterdam, NY, and it was FULL of DVDs and jewelry.

The women of the house thoroughly enjoyed divvying up the pretty things, but diamonds (not that I own any) don't shine a candle to a girl's best friend!  The exhilarating part of this package was the "love" in the signature, in the lavender tissue paper, and the individually ziploc-packaged pieces; the fact that, all across the country and across the world, people are thinking of my family and I through our struggles, and that they want to help.  I have received several packages since the robbery (just over a month ago, now) from good friends who stuffed the packages with replacement music, movies, and jewelry -- not just for me, but for my family.  Better yet, they wrote letters saying, "I'm thinking of you and your family and I'm amazed at how well you all seem to pull through."

Really, every single one of those authors and text-messagers and phone-callers and package-packers should take some credit for our resilience.  I am completely awestruck at how strong those bonds still are after hundreds of months, thousands of miles, and a few scattered battles, and the impact of just a word or a message on my state of mind.  I feel that love breathing in, on, and around my physical diaphragm, and beating somewhere in the general vicinity of my heart -- every single day.  It's incredible.

Now, not to take an egocentric turn here, but I'm also amazed at how many different things I can do, and how much I can really handle.  Actually, there is a segue: my Mainstays are as important to my capacity and stamina as food, water, and sleep.

Lately I've been enjoying setting up my living space -- what my mom calls my "tfol," a warehouse-style basement loft.  Its walls are made of unfinished drywall, partially-spackled and partially-painted cement blocks, floor-length purple curtains, and a staircase.  I'm using old milk crates as my (overflowing) bookshelves, and so far most of my stuff is still in cardboard boxes.  My clothes hang from a pipe suspended by chains from the ceiling beams, which are covered over with brown paper.  I've put up some posters and stuff on the walls now, mounting things in the ever-difficult drywall anchors, thumbtacking a few things up there, sticky-tacking other things.  I rewired an Indian lamp last night...  The list goes on and on.

Beyond the spectacle of filling up my motor oil at a high-traffic corner Exxon station in my work clothes, or the utter satisfaction of having mounted a corkboard on my wall or dripping with sweat and/or dust-coated from hard work...  Beyond the relatively fleeting rush of those things, what is exciting to me is the thought of presenting my finished work to my friends, inviting them into my interesting, comfortable tfol and offering them a beer or a cup of tea, a place to sit or to sleep, some nice music to listen to.

And even on the worst days, when there is no fleeting rush, a letter or a package or a phone call or text message is more refreshing and energizing than a nap, a snack, or a cool drink of water.