BEAUTY FROM RUBBLE

I own a sledge hammer.  Two in fact.  One is a bright yellow long handled sledge.  The other, a small handled one that I used when I sold real estate to beat the hell out of a sign post to get it in the ground when needed.  Just a couple of weeks ago my new husband and I tackled the basement.  When he moved in we put most things away, merging decorations, towels, dishes, etc….   But stuff that was storage, or things that we all just accumulate and move from place to place, we stacked in the basement next to my own unsorted pile of craps that needed to be sorted through post my own divorce.  We sorted , threw away, gave away to Goodwill and combined things like, pictures, books, old blankets, teaching materials, and eventually our tools.  For a girl, I have a decent collection of tools.  My first husband didn’t really know the top side of a hammer so when he moved out there was no real question that the tools stayed with me.  My new husband and I combined my containers of nails, screws, washers, electric nuts with his.  We joined our tool boxes into his much larger one orderly sorting screw drivers, socket sets, Stanley knives, wrenches into neatly organized tool drawers.  He was amazed at what I had.  He was a bit envious of my circular saw which was way nicer than his circa 1950 one.  He giggled that I owned 2 sledge hammers.  They came in handy when not too long after that basement clean up job we tackled tearing down the sun room off the back of the house.  We used those sledges during demolition, along with both crow bars, both hammers, vice grips, one of his drills and a borrowed Saws-all.   Day two of the destruction, as I perched on the roof, Saws-all in hand ready to separate the roof lines, I smiled in pure contentment to be outside doing manual labor right alongside  my husband.  We made a great team  - talking through how we thought we should do the next step, cleaning up after each section we tore down, constantly checking that we caught as many nails as possible and collecting them in a bucket, keeping the tools orderly and accessible and helping each other when we needed a hand.  We were home wreckers of sorts those couple of days – destroying the old, rotting, ugly to make way for new, beautiful, created by purpose and design.  I cheered as I powered through the first roof section and then kicked it loose from above to see the rafters fall below.  We both cheered.  Two people who had a handful of tools, the desire to change ugly to beautiful, no real knowledge of how to dismantle a structure from a roof line had succeeded.  When the last corner beams fell Doug and I were ecstatic.  We had done yet another project together in peace and harmony, with actual enjoyment in being with each other.  Both of us had come from hard, difficult and ugly places.  We had combined tools, belongings, and desires and were building a life together into a thing of beauty - just like our soon to be finished patio.