Life

We repainted the entire house. All of it. I spent two months boxing up books, paintings, toys, digital devices, more books, and candles and mugs and pen holders and desk photographs and dozens of miscellaneous knick-knacks, and glasses and goblets and bottles of wine and liquor, and documents, various speakers and lamps, only to spend two weeks with the house in disarray and me working in the dust and catching first allergic rhinitis and then tracheitis. Finally, now that they’re finished and the house is starting to feel like a home again, I can finally say I’ll never do it again. Ever. You’d better sell the house, if I have to think about it again in a thousand years. That’ll be the right time.

When my daughter gets a haircut, she comes home sad and angry because she doesn’t like it, that haircut, and then her mom washes it again and fixes it, and she looks at herself in the mirror and smiles, and then, in bed, under the warm covers, shortly after, happy, she tells me, Dad, I love my hair.

My friend Nicola, a few weeks ago, referenced this post of mine and wrote about Bitonto, the town where he lives. I admire and almost envy the way he described it. You can clearly tell that, somehow, it’s his roots and that those roots engage him.

There are people who throw themselves, and there are people who stay on the sidelines to watch. Who is at greatest risk?