How the Universe Conspired on My Behalf; Or, How a Flood Forced me to Finally Start Cleaning Out Our Garage

"Oh. No. Is that Rain? Or..." Quickly, I rushed to the front door. Opened it....No rain. That meant my fears were correct and the sound of water was coming from our garage/basement.

It began on an otherwise peaceful Saturday night. Husband 2.0 and I lay on opposite sides of the bed, my head at the foot of the bed, his at the headboard. He held his new toy, a Kindle, and I held the real thing--a book. We chatted between paragraphs. I was anxiously lapping up the final pages of Susan Gregg Gilmore's second novel, The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove.  For the next three months, I'd be cramming nonfiction, filing reviews on them and emailing rewrites to my mentor. I'd just returned home, stimulated yet fatigued from orientation at The Writer's Loft, Middle Tennessee State University's low-residency program. (I've now entered the rewrite stage of my second book.)

Meanwhile, I trusted, unwisely, that my 16-year-old with autism could shower alone, without my supervision. She does this every night. But the drain was plugged and when my instincts correctly sensed that something was not right, I put down my book and went upstairs. My sight confirmed the worst. The tub had overflowed. I'd left her there too long. I told her to shut off the water and to get out of the tub. I grabbed some old towels from the laundry room and put them atop of the water that had oozed out from the bathroom door into her bedroom. Sheepishly I admit, this had happened before. And then I returned to my leisurely post on the bed with Husband 2.0. Until, instincts sensed something again. I went back upstairs and learned Grace had decided to turn the water back on anyway.

To mop up this saga--no pun intended--the additional water from her "second shower" leaked beneath her room--which is above the garage--down into the garage atop of the stacks and stacks of boxes yet unpacked. While I unpacked and decorated the rest of the house in seven weeks time, and said "I do," in front of our closet friends and family standing around us in our living room, the dark secret in my subconscious, aka the metaphorical and actual basement, was that there were still a gazillion of boxes waiting for me to release their contents. And they remained there. Lurking the shadowy labyrinths of my psyche.

Life happened. We honeymooned for two weeks. School resumed. Deadlines demanded my attention, the office, one spot in the visible house that had not be organized, was waiting for me to order its' contents. Just in time for The Writer's Loft orientation and my return to my manuscript drafted six years ago....The garage. That nagging box bloated garage....Summer? This weekend? I'd even thought, I'd start on the basement Sunday and Monday. Except....Grace was home versus at her father's. No matter. She went to her maternal grandmother's who serendipitously called to take her on Sunday. Donned in polar fleece, long johns and all the other essential cold weather gear, we began excavating. Messily.

It's about time we got to that dang garage. The Universe, as Husband 2.0's best friend told me, conspired on my behalf. That and my child negligence and the overflowing shower.

Dang.

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In reverence and all due respect to the thousands of Nashvillians who lost their homes and prize possessions in the Nashville's 1,000-year flood just this past May, my mental mantra upon returning upstairs after accessing the inconvenient damage: this is nothing in comparison to the sheer devastation suffered. And for this, my flooded garage, I only have myself to blame. (Dang it.)

I wrote this post on Sunday and finished cleaning out a good quarter of the garage on MLK. That's enough for my husband to create a shop for his knife-smithing. The movers were jolly, kind souls but they carelessly and with great disorder dumped boxes and other belongings into my garage. In addition, months of trying to navigate boxes in search of one thing or another, caused more damage, as evidenced in the above picture. Now I've shown you my little dark secret....What's yours?

Comments

[Emerson Paynode]

My family also did a lot of heavy cleaning after the flood. To speed up the cleaning, we decided to put some items up for sale in our garage instead of packing them up in boxes in our basement.

[Leisa A. Hammett]

I vote office, Charlotte. Took me forever to get mine to where it is now, (not optimal) but ahhh feels so much better! I've also earmarked weekends, etc. to attack the unorganized parts of the house.

[Charlotte Rains Dixon]

You've inspired me. I've got a basement full of crap that needs to be excavated. But first, I've really got to clean this office. I kept putting it off until I returned home from Nashville, but now I'm home, I have no excuses.

[Leisa A. Hammett]

...boxes...

[Penny]

Oh, Leisa, my "secret" is similar to yours; and we are getting ready to pick it up and move it to a location near you. We've been going through boxes and getting rid of stuff on this side of the move, but I figure we'll still have a good sized "secret" to bring with us. What do you do with family heirlooms that you hold dear because the people attached to them are gone, when you're not ready to set them out (because children can be rough on things without meaning to)?