Rubix cube for a rainy day, 09/09

It's not too unusual to wake up early these days. It's all about my cat, you see. Guapo has a system of his own, a life and an internal clock that has nothing to do with my sleeping life and the battery operated clock next to my bed. I know, either through a gentle nudge or a persistent meow, that it's time to let him out. It's not as if his cat box is dirty or his bowl is empty, it's just that "it's time", whatever that means. This morning "that time" was five thirty. This morning's wake up call was just that, my own personal bugler for the day. I took that cat call and turned it into a movie morning. Watched Harrison Ford battle his inner demons on the Mosquito Coast. Talk about a family that knows how to stick together in times of adversity!


But that film dovetailed right into the clock tower going off and the naval station playing the national anthem. It was all good, regardless of the fact that I could have used the sleep, or, if I was inclined, knowing that I could have gone back to sleep but would have been down on myself for the rest of the day. So, instead of goofing I used that time to get to work. I hustled boxes down from The Boy's room and staged them next door in the little house. I reinforced the lock on the basement door and caulked the tub. I have a small baseboard assignment in the kitchen to knock out and the paint and brush are all ready to go. It's raining outside so that means a trip under the porch to see how my handiwork turned out. Looking for wet spots is not my idea of good time but doing so now will mean less work later on. Maybe fewer ants, too.


When I moved around those boxes I came across a Rubix's Cube. Somehow I know that it was mine at one time, one of those things that I kicked out of the house when we had that famous meltdown back in September of '06. The cube, along with that little rubber frog I mentioned ina an earlier post, all took a hike that day. Funny how they both popped up today. Maybe the cosmos somehow figured it was a day to add some things to the wooden box. To that end I also found this morning an article from a local newspaper about Debbie Macomber, and so that, along with the two aforementioned items, will be set aside to be stowed away.


I also have a Connell's flyer to put in that box, but it'll stay out as a reminder until I run that mission. I am aching to do a drive across the bridge and see Connell's farm, as their flyer mentioned that this year's show was to be their last one. I want to be sure to get on the mailing list for their catalog, if indeed they still plan on selling dahlia bulbs. I also want to be sure that you are on that list, too, if you are not so already. One more thing in the mail to you.


So I gave some thought about the meaning of that Rubix Cube as it applied to us and know that you set your's down a long time ago. Somehow seeing it today made it clear to me that I never did, that I still have that device flying around in my hands, twisting and turning it for all it is worth. Obviously that puzzle and it's ulitmate solution has nothing to do with you and me anymore. No, these days I'm just working on solutions to my own life. I think of the wrenching decisions we had to make back in the day, and know that when you made yours you stuck to them, regardless of personal cost. For me I kept those solutions of yours in the background as a reminder that it could be done but continued to look for some solutions of my own, regardless of the cost. Right now my tab is running pretty high for having maintained that search, for continuing to look for answers, for keeping the quest going on that high ideal I had about us and life and love and all that.


I think of all the women who have passed through my life over the last few years, ones that have come in and out of my life to help me somehow get over you, past you, past us, and know that, in the end, they were part of a team that helped me try to work that puzzle. They took over, tag team style, to try to help me see that setting down that cube, even without a firm answer about you and me and that love that we shared, was okay to do. Somehow when I found that that answer was unexceptable those women went away, tired of participating in my quest. They didn't want to be part of a team that somehow still had you on it. They didn't want to be involved with a man who was still trying to figure out the answers to his past that involved the ghost of a woman he was still obviously in love with.


I think of Thanksgiving and the open email box, and then I think of this last June and a post from this blog that somehow found it's way out and into the hands of some reader that had no idea what it was that they found. I think of all the friends I have that know about our story, the cost of those letters and posts not only on my relationship with my Estranged One but also my job and know that each of those transactions are one of those little colored squares on that Rubix Cube. Somewhere along the line that toy has gotten to be almost bigger than life, truly bigger than what we were working on when we were together. It has gone way past making decisions that involved our children and our lives to involving almost all facets of my life. You, my dear, even at this distance, are still impacting the puzzle. You, my love, are still somehow part of the key, part of the solution, even if after all this time I have no idea what that solution to the puzzle may end up being.


Will I find the answer once I land in Boise? Will it become clear to me and light up like one of those cartoon lightbulbs, once I have Punkin and The Boy and the rest of the kids back in my life once again? Will I see everything I need to see clear as glass once I ride up and over the Rockies and into Loveland? Will I finally be able to set that damn thing down when I see that my life is just that, mine and mine alone, to figure out and that my choices I make from here on out will dictate how and where I land?


I took boxes down from my kid's room today and came across an old artifact of our life together. I sometimes make more of that life than I should, I know, but we lived, my dear, a million lifetimes in that year. But even more that year of ours has spilled out and over the rest of my life, and for that, even with all the complications and hassles and all that, I am glad. That toy, like our love, has been a teacher, the greatest teacher I've ever had. I don't know if I will be smarter when I am done figuring it all out, but I will be a hell of a lot wiser, and nobody can really ask for much more than that.


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