Weekend V

Let me tell you about this weekend past.

First of all, it felt long. Friday was a holiday from usual work in order to prepare for the Mammoth Garage Sale of the Century. Given that we'd had one of those Garage Sales of the Century only three or four years ago, there shouldn't have been too much stuff to sell -- but there was. Our life is a little cycle of downsizing at the moment so there is always something that should go.

Going through "stuff" -- stuff that was once precious and now isn't or stuff that there is too much of or beloved stuff that there is really no place for -- always puts me curiously in touch with my own mortality. I guess the shallowness of Things, and their temporal nature, points to that which is deep and enduring. And I am always made uncomfortable at the disparity between what is and what should be. Being uncomfortable is often awkward but it is usually helpful, too.

The garage sale itself was on Saturday, and necessitated rising at 5am in the piercing cold blackness. The ad we'd placed in the newspaper said we'd be starting at 8am but, of course, the customers began rolling in around 6.30. People picking over your things proffers more discomfort.

Hosting a garage sale is a bit like opening your personal diary and having random strangers come along, pick up the diary, and read it all. Occasionally one of the readers will smile and and meet your gaze and say, "I know what you meant when you said this here," but mostly they will wrinkle their nose and look at you strangely out of the corner of their eye, or ask if they can tear a piece out and do some editing and then stick it back in again. That is what a garage sale feels like.

But we sold some stuff (not quite enough to make our garage gleam with bareness, unfortunately) and we met some people with very cool accents to boot. Then we put all the unsold stuff back into the garage and celebrated its end with fish and chips.

I wasn't well for much of the weekend so Sunday saw me in pyjamas until very late, reading Alex and Brett Harris's Do Hard Things. So far, it's very, very good. I don't know why I am surprised; everything else I've read by these guys has been great. But I suppose I assumed that perhaps the contents might only be applicable to teenagers -- and instead I am finding a million ways to apply the concept of doing hard things to my own life, even though I'm nineyearspastteen. Oh, and Chuck Norris wrote the foreword! The Chuck Norris. For some reason I think this is incredibly hilarious.

There was no night-church this week so instead we did church the old-fashioned way (which is simply hanging out with other believers) and caught up with friends who live in the city but whom we only seem to catch up with on about the fifth of forever. It was so lovely to while away the afternoon (and into the chilly early evening) and talk and nibble at the huge spread they'd prepared. We must do it more often.

One half chaos and the other half refreshment. That was our weekend. I'd say that's a pretty good mix.