That Ever Present Inner Voice

Blog jan 6

March 18, 2002

Following my inner voice used to be easier but things are starting to heat up between us.And while I don’t doubt for a moment the truthfulness of what it’s telling me or the notion that the harder it is for me to do what I know I should, the more important it is for me to do just that, I’m still more than a little put off.And following my bliss, that’s getting trickier too.Not so much for feeling indulgent but because the price of following my bliss will be paid, in part, with tears.There will be joy and sacrifice.And so the cycle will continue.The cycle of growth.And ultimately, the gentle irony of letting go ofwhat listening to that inner voice got me, will come to pass.Never has this been more true than with my house.My home.Eight years ago or so, when I got the call from a relative of that the old house, I’d known as a child, was going on the market and my help as a Realtor was needed, I knew right away I would be the new owner.Even before I came to it again and saw the wear of many unkind years I remembered the look of the light through the windows and the memory of Sunday afternoons in summer here in this bungalow.And, when people came to look at it and wondered out loud, and sometimes with sincere fright, why I would want to do so much work.How would I manage it all?What had gotten into me?It was my inner voice that gave me told me there really was no choice in it.“Dive in,” it said.And dive I did, and, in no place with more purpose than in the dining room. I just had to. Because my inner voice said so and she wouldn’t can it until the work began.White paint covering the wood built-ins hutches, flanking the door to the kitchen, and the three sided bay window whose leaded glass sun let the real thing through to caste rainbow circles all over the place and box beams against the 9’ ceiling and fancy wainscot skirting below had chipped with each bump.Yellowed a little every year for many years.  Twenty-five maybe.There was no lightness there.It was heavy and sad because it was beautiful underneath it’s own history.So first with a heat gun the thick layer of paint melted away and fell to the floor in warm curled up pieces.Throughout that summer the heat gun hummed and the paint fell away a small section at at time.It was fun but too much of any one kind of fun is, well, less fun.By fall though most of the white was now a sticky looking brown.Soon all the white was gone and the wood could breath but it was still sickly and sad.About this time, I wasn’t very pleased with my inner voice.It seemed to have lead me down a path that was too long.However alluring the promise of completion, the reality of the work required things of me I wasn’t sure I had enough of.Namely patience.Several months into the process working several nights a week with nobody in their right or wrong mind willing to help save a boyfriend who had come and gone and really only helped because what else could he do without looking like the worst boyfriend I’d ever had.  And my mother who probably would have been at my brother or sister’s house (poking fun at my wild ideas and foolishness) had I had any.But being her one and only meant she had one and only place to go to get that mother love fix that comes when a momma is with her baby.She came like a trooper after declaring (quite seriously and very uncharacteristically as she is almost always the epitomy of supportive) that I could take on such a mammoth undertaking “over her dead body.”She came in the evenings and side by side we worked and I wonder now what on earth her inner voice was telling her all that while.By spring, opening the windows was not only pleasant, it helped keep the toxic fumes of chemical stripper from completely overtaking our lungs and corrupting any hope of level headedness.And the work continued.Like the utensils and cookware of any good cook: ladders for climbing, dental tools for picking out specs of paint that hadn’t gotten the message, steel wool and paint coated thick gloves which couldn’t totally prevent the sting of stripper on skin, lay spread over the room.A giant recipe being made on the walls andme, mom, my inner voice and my dining room, yet to be dined in, but not through after eight months together. Maybe I wasn’t as impatient as I’d thought.How could I be?A really impatient person would have burned the house down.And maybe it was around this time I started to bargain with my inner voice.I started to make earnest deals that included never having to leave this house for the rest of my life.I remedy mypain by proposing that I be allowed to stay there to guard the grains of wood.After all, why else would I be doing something so crazy.Surely this meant forever.And believing in forever spurned me onand the feeling of being a complete freak of renovating nature subsided.And then summer was here again and the days got long and the task seemed to have and end that I could see.And at night as the sun set and the music played there was a spring in my step.A sense of goodness.More than the cold beer I sipped while stepping back to admire real progress or the fantasy (one day to be reality) of folks coming from far and wide to admire good work while I smiled with humble confidence in a job done well.It was just a sense of goodness in that time and place and I thanked my inner voice because it seemed so wise to me.By fall the first coats of stain began to tell the story of beauty restored and it was marvelous to watch.And then a second coat all the way around.And then on Thanksgiving day, more that a year after the task at hand had begun, the last lick of varythane went on and when mom came through the door and saw the table set and the warm glow of the wood all around the room, she cried those proud motherly tears and it was good.Thanksgiving it was.There are more stories of this house.Of painting it and patching it and watching it for clues of how to make it better and of the yard that still calls to me for love and time and money wanting to be given a make-over too like the house it holds.But inside I hear of other plans now.I hear it when I think of my bliss and where it would have me next.It is not found in this house anymore.It tells me it’s time to go even when it knows that this isn’t what I bargained for.I thought I was going to get to stay because I’d done the work.The house that scared some people was admired and in it’s glow, I shined.I thought I had earned my permanent place here.Instead, what I found constant was the courage to do more listening.Maybe I could live without that kind of courage I think to myself.But what sort of life would that be for me?Where would I be today if this was how I’d chosen to make choices.Fearfully.Tentatively and in accordance with the well meaning expectations of others.Well, maybe the voice I heard back then has been in some random accident and is laying somewhere warm and safe but unable to move trying to crawl back to tell me that the voice I’m hearing now is not the authentic one and will ruin all promise of a real future if I listen to it’s crazy talk. I wish.I wish because following my bliss is risky business and I think I thought I only had to feel real risk while I was younger, less experienced and with nothing but a '77 Green Mustang and a set of used silverware to loose.The stakes are higher all the way around but it’s the same game.More to gain andmore to lose but really only one way to play.The philosophy that got me into this great big gorgeous house is about to get me out and not many people, least of all me on some days, thinks it’s a swell idea.But then, they seldom do.That’s just it.Right now I’m listening but not agreeing and I don’t have to, yet.I’m following my bliss but I’m certainly scared to pieces.I’m certain that I need to move forward but sure it will be sad looking back.And my house.My home.What about us after all?We love each other.I’ve loved it and it’s loved me back.I took care of it and now it’s taking care of me back.It will give me everything I need to the my new chapter of my life.It’s setting me free.I haven’t left yet.I’m still listening.Some days I ask questions and wait for answers. Yesterday it came on TV with a guy on OPB who said, as I turned up the volume, “Follow your bliss.”I know I’ll know when it’s time.Just like I knew I had to own this house and work on that dining room.I suspect what I’ll come to experience too is the feeling that “wherever you go, there you are.”I may not be in my house as my new life unfolds but it will surely be in me.Just like that ever present inner voice.My wisdom.My burden.My friend.