Voila!

As I posted last week, my dream porch was a four-season one with an air conditioning unit to allay the hot, humid summers in Missouri + a wall heating unit for the state’s mild winters. When that wasn’t feasible because of cost, I sat at the kitchen table, writing my Morning Pages, working through my letting go of a dream.

After filling pages 1 and 2 with my scribbling, I began page 3—the final page of each Morning Page entry. It was then that clarity came as it so often did. I’d listed the economic facts, I’d explored my feelings, I’d written why I wanted the porch and what it would do for my psyche and for the cats. In other words, I’d presented my “case.”

The third page would be the “closing argument” and the “verdict.”

Then the words came. Suddenly I was able to get out of the tunnel of my vision and see the options beyond. Something occurred to me—something that simply hadn’t been part of my thinking: I could have a screened-in porch!

In your comments last week, a number of you mentioned that I could think of other possibilities; some of you even suggested a screened-in porch. But I tell you now that I’ve always been burdened with the “all-or-nothing” syndrome, just like Will Parker in the musical “Oklahoma,” which Rogers and Hammerstein produced on Broadway in 1943.

My uncle owned the recording, and I listened to it all of one summer as I babysat his and my aunt’s new baby—my cousin Kay. The song just stuck in my mind and became—I now believe—foundational to my approach to life. It may be part of why the convent experience ended with my breakdown. It surely is a part of my obsessive behavior with regard to writing. (I’ll post about that soon.)

The Morning Pages helped me let go of having an “all-or-nothing” dream of a porch. Surely a screened-in porch would cost much less than $21,000 and would be pleasant for three seasons of the year if I bought an oscillating fan.

When I shared this “revelation” with my brother and sister-in-law, they suggested that I ask their neighbor—a contractor for jobs both large and small—if he would build it. When I called Manuel and introduced myself, he agreed to stop by to determine the time needed to build the porch and the cost of materials and labor.

The rest is history. Manuel came, accepted the job, and got busy on it later in July. The cats and I have been enjoying it since then. I’d post a photograph, but I don’t know how to get the photos from my phone to the computer. (That’s something I need to learn. Just one of many aspects of technology that elude me.)

I had the furniture for the porch because of the four-season I had in Minnesota. However, I needed to buy a rug that would be water repellant. I got that from Amazon. One end of the porch faces west and the sun really pours through the screen there, so I bought two bamboo shades. They were on sale at Penney’s. Each shade had been reduced from $60 to $15! So I lucked out there in a big way.

I’m so glad my Morning pages jack-hammered me out of the concrete of thinking only one kind of porch would do. As to economics: the porch cost me 1/7^th of what the four-season would have: $3,300 for labor, materials, and accoutrements! I didn’t need to get a loan! Wow!

Peace