Sunday, August 02, 2009

Definition of Heaven

The Kingdom of Heaven is like an elderly widow returning from a long journey and lying down on her very own bed.
As St. Paul remarked, When the perfect comes the imperfect shall pass away.

I slept well enough on a futon for the month in Happy Valley. After a few nights I no longer noticed the slats under the mattress. The weather was cool for July and the window could be opened onto the grassy nights, with the coyotes squealing in the distance. Grandson McGregor's breathing from his sleeping bag on the floor felt like a lullaby, and the house felt like home.

By day, the cousins squealed outside in a kiddie pool, or batted a wiffle ball around. There was a swing set, and there was yet another "last summer" celebrated at the homestead Den and I created for them. The vision of grandchildren playing in the big grassy yard with swings and croquet and a hammock--with the parents watching all from a lovely deck, yes that was heaven too, especially when you remembered the bug spray and sun block. In memory, it will shine.

But in the eternal now, the house was on the market. Showings, meetings, and tense conversations created a constant kerfluffle. There is a special level in hell, I'm sure, where your empty house sits unsold for all eternity, where prospective tenants and buyers try to chisel yet another last dime from you, and where a mean real estate broker looses tirades upon your head. Reader, the buyer's market is vicious, vicious, and that's all I'm going to say on the subject (for today).

Today, having traveled the gauntlet of puff machines, bomb warnings, prices of bag checking and taxi cabs doubling within a month's time (a lamb among wolves, that's me), today I have returned to my NC space to find it overstuffed with furniture and eerily quiet. It is also cool here, and there was a pizza in the freezer and TV and Internet, and whether or not it feels like home, it does contain my own bed.

That's got to be heaven enough for now.

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