First, let me clarify that it was not the fence that was doing the musing rather I was musing as I was beside the fence.
First musing -- "Good fences make good neighbors." At least that is what Robert Frost said in "Mending Wall." But was he right? Do good fences make good neighbors? I especially wonder about the validity of that statement when the fence serves no purpose as a clear demarcation of property line nor does it keep any livestock where they belong. Does it only make good neighbors if I keep it in good repair eliminating any risk of devaluing the properties in the neighborhood. If the fence serves no purpose but as an ornament and my neighbors are annoyed if I don't keep it in repair, do I live in a neighborhood that is too affluent? It seems there are many things more important than a fence in good repair. However, I spent much of my day painting our fence.
Second musing -- If I compare our fence to our neighbor's fence (I know comparing yourself among yourselves is not wise but I am comparing fences-or am I?), I come to several conclusions about us: (1) We are lazy. It certainly doesn't take as much work to keep us busy as it does our neighbors. They are always finding more things to do at their house. So comparatively speaking, we are lazy. (2) We have no imagination. While our neighbor's fence has gone from brown to black and now to white, ours has been painted only half as frequently and always the same tone of red. Is it a lack of imagination that causes us to always paint our fence red or is it a well-developed imagination that prevents us from having to paint it different colors visualize it white, or grey, or a darker grey--or purple for that matter? (3) We don't have as much money. We could not afford to do as many things to our house as they have done to theirs. But maybe these are all connected. They bought four older houses and remodeled and resold each one. That gave them more work to do. They chose a different theme for each house they remodeled--more imagination. They sold all four of them for significantly more than they bought them. I guess that is why we are still paying on the house we bought from them, and they are living in the house they built with the profit from the other four. (4) We are more contented. Maybe we are not as busy, as imaginative, or have as much money because we are more contented with what we have. Those were some of my thoughts while I spent much of my day painting our fence red.
Third musing -- After I finished painting the fence, I started painting the basement wall/foundation. Last summer on a very windy day, I saw the paint literally blowing off the basement wall. We used a pressure washer to get the loose paint off the wall, but then we realized that the old stucco was coming loose too. We removed all the loose sections and redid the stucco. It has been curing since then. Today I started coating that wall with Drylock. Now the interesting thing about Drylock is that when I opened the can, the top was very watery. I started stirring the contents of the can. I stirred, and I stirred, and I stirred. Suddenly the epiphany! That can of Drylock is much like a person. On the surface it is just a bunch of liquid--nothing of any substance. But, under that is the grit. And it is the grit that makes the Drylock worthwhile. If the whole can had been the liquid like at the top without the grit, it would have been useless. I had to dig deeper and get to what was the good stuff. Too often in life, we may be satisfied with the liquid on the surface rather than digging deep and getting the value of the grit. And in case you are wondering, the basement wall will be the same boring grey that it was before.
I am enjoying my summer days with times of solitude when there are fewer demands on my time, and I can muse by the fence about the nitty-gritty issues of life.
