I was sitting in a darkened basement living room in our temporary housing; I looked up at the sound of footsteps on the gravel outside the window, and next thing I knew, two bricks were thrown at the window, making an unexpected popping sound. With each pop, I screamed, involuntarily, like this piercing sound was jerked out of me; like being startled at a scary moment in a movie. The would-be burglars must have heard me and run away; I was conscious of nothing but tremblingly trying to dial 911 before they came back. When you’ve been nearly burgled, have looked into the eyes of a would-be burglar before he throws a brick at your window, there are suddenly things you’ve experienced that your imagination couldn’t dream up. As a writer, I’m always imagining how it would feel to be someone else, to experience different things. But here are the things I didn’t imagine I would feel:
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So how did it turn out?How did the idea board vision turn into reality? Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not great at envisioning how things will turn out, whether it be a paint color (in my last house, I repainted the living room walls three times until I got it right), a novel I'm writing, or in this case, an apartment layout. Living RoomWe ended up going with a different rug that better fit the style of the apartment, and sadly the little green file cabinets that I loved so much were no longer being sold at Ikea by the time we got around to buying furniture. The arrangement is slightly different, with our coffee table housing our projector which points at a screen that drops down in front of the bed nook (so we can watch movies from either the couch or the bed). Dining/WorkingBed NookI'd say overall, it turned out pretty close! Some of the sizes were a bit different, and the layout was different, but the space definitely includes most of the things I originally envisioned.
Here are a few more angles: Right now, I’m living by a lakeside in rural Georgia while E is training at his new job, in what feels (to me) incredibly remote, along a highway, where I cannot walk to a grocery store or coffee shop, surrounded by desolate trees shorn of leaves. It is the kind of place where I would set a murder mystery; the body, covered with dead leaves, discovered off the earth-packed trail to the water, or in one of the winterized boats at the marina. The quiet is indescribable. Even when I can hear my neighbors talking through the walls, there is something so incredibly still about this place; a heavy, lingering silence. It is temporary. A resting place or halting ground between stations. In three months, we will be across the country, in a city, with our own stuff; the noise of traffic and late-night drunks, the stress of apartment hunting, the fun of finding new places where we can become locals. So how do I settle in here, with a pair of suitcases and a dog into an apartment full of someone else's things; trying to get to know neighbors I will not likely see again. It is a strange feeling. It always takes me time to get to know people. What am I supposed to do with a weird interlude to my life? How can I make use of time that feels like wasted time? And yet, the purpose God has for me in being here is bigger than what I would plan for myself. What I see as wasted time, he has ordained as an opportunity to meet and minister to my neighbors; to rest from the frenetic pace of packing and preparing our house to sell; to focus undistracted on work and writing; to be involved in and ministered to by a thriving church; to breathe. |