Typewriter's and Post Offices

Sunday afternoon, the air is fresh, there is hope in the wind. The sun is not painful. It's refreshing. Fall, blessed fall. Thank you Lord, for this day. We are having quiet time. Husband sleeping, Jack playing legos, Henry playing trains. And me. I'm not in a swivet over houses, or other uncontrollables. My well(quite literally) has been low, and it has changed the status-quo in a few ways. When circumstances shift, when there is a sudden, unexpected alteration, a variable in the equation--

--- the perspective changes. (The well being low is only the beginning of 'variables' around here...just an excellent example... it effects everything we do.)

I enjoyed a visit to the post office the other day, learning from the clerk & one of the carriers in the office that the acres at the end/or should I say at the beginning of our route off the main highway, isn't going to be a new neighborhood, but a horse pasture. Cleared entirely for horses, not for tree-less 'mc-mansions'. Remember those days? When you would pass a cleared field and know within 2 months there would be 20 houses where the oaks of 'Oaklawn Subdivision' used to be? Those days are gone folks. The recession is here. Now those houses are going for nickles on the dollar. While shopping for houses, we see empty leftover beautiful homes, all the time. That's not even talking about the forclosure market. I'm just talking about the bank-owned builder leftovers. It's sad. And factual all at the same time. It's what happens when we want more. When a typewriter isn't good enough, and we have to be able to send our words to millions, much more quickly than a letter used to travel. When we want more than we need.

So I'm crafting a set of typewriter keys on a wooden board today. (a Pottery Barn Knock-off, plain & simple) remember I have lots of bare walls & my sister-in-law, Heidi, has already supplied the board. Just got to do it. She followed Susie Harris' instructions HERE. It could be said, I'm juse perpetuating the continued obsession with commercialism/ie: all things pottery barn, but I really, really like typewriters. And I think there's just alot of cute, homey things in pottery barn. I love their style. There, I said it.

Like most mom's across America/the world, I'm trying to reconcile dreaming & wanting with contentment, recreation, and doing one's very best. And often times, one's past just creeps up and creates a whole nuther set of expectations or guidelines you weren't expecting.

Back to the post office. There's a part-time fill in position available at the local post office. You know you are becoming your mother when a very spookily similar job comes available at about the same place in your life. You see, for a time my mom ran the small library in the train depot when we lived in Cordova, part-time mind you. At least that's what I remember. I just remember lots of hand stamps and cards, and the train depot windows. Here's the connection, or unexpected memory--all my life, I've wanted to work in the post office. Just ask my family. I participated in a field trip when I was a kid to the post office in Bowling Green KY, and that was it for me. I loved all those letters and stamps. the slots, the paper, the stacks of mail. It makes me think, at least of my Mom's part-time job. Of all those compartments, books, paper & stamps. Maybe not, maybe..

But there it is. That big temptation, to step back into the work world. The world where it all makes sense, order, cooperative people to work with. A function to perform that will be appreciated immediately, with a pay-check to boot!

You see this home-school, home-maker mom dreams of the outside world. And she knows herself a little too well, to think that it will only remain 1 day every 2 weeks. or so. ? Crack me up tho... it's not an interior design firm in Athens that's wooing me... it's a local small town post office. A simple ad in the local paper. And they don't even know how strongly I'm comparing them to the Sirens that tempted Jason.

Perhaps something will come of it, & I'll learn my community better, get to know people faster, have a morning or 2 off now and then. Off from my full-time job of wife & mother. The one that only I can do. It may not seem like much to you, perhaps, dear reader, this seems like an obvious no-brainer to you, but it's not for me. Some dreams don't make sense to others (the post office???)- yet, on a more serious note, a job outside my home for me is a slippery slope, -- what may be meat offered to idols, may be just meat to others. Just a window into the simple, yet surreal life I seem to be living right about now.

Well, must finish the typewriter key art before everyone wakes up!

photos: linked from 'Cordova, TN' found on Wikepedia.com

Cordova Elementary, where my brother attended before integration & busing changed our world.

Cordova Train Depot, where I played while my mother was part-time librarian.