There is a fine layer of dust throughout the house today. Work on the kitchen has started. Gary and Wills have taken great care to minimise the passage of dust from the kitchen to the rest of the house, creating a cover for the door which Heath Robinson would surely admire. Even so, we know from experience that dust will travel.
One of the aims yesterday (Day 1) was to reveal the chimney breast. It may be possible to make a feature of the bare brick work.
The initial work reveals a bit of a mixed picture: the brickwork is not as pretty as it can sometimes be. By the time I get to see it, Gary and Wills have already come up with a plan B – suggestions about how to display some of the brick work whilst repairing and covering some that really isn’t attractive.
By the end of the day, the unused pipe has been removed and some of the brick work has been stripped back on the adjacent wall with the aim of sealing it and varnishing it so that it can stay bare. By the time they leave the house, Gary and Wills have popped the cooker back in place, cleaned the surface and uncovered the sink and surrounding area so that I have the use of the kitchen after they’ve gone.
Whilst they have been working, I have been reflecting on the years I have spent in the house. During this time I have taken decisions to set up my own business, to study neurolinguistic programming (NLP) and nonviolent communication (NVC), to train as a coach… all decisions that I didn’t foresee when I moved in in January, 2000. I didn’t anticipate the decisions, I didn’t anticipate the deep learning that would come with the decisions. I have experienced the almost paradoxical combination of living at the edge of my comfort zone and beyond and becoming increasingly connected and comfortable with myself.
I couldn’t have done this without support. Some of it has been professional – working with a number of wonderful coaches over the last ten years, taking courses, as well as the support of Hoss, my wonderful accountant at Brooks Carling. So much of it has come from friends and colleagues, including some I have met along the way.
My family, too, have been an enduring presence. If ever there’s an advanced school of learning, it is in the family. Sometimes my experiences of family have stimulated me to explore new ways of doing things. Sometimes I have applied new learnings in the context of my family – whether they like it or not. Often, they have been on tenterhooks – how would I fare as the owner and director of my own business…?
As I write, I take a moment to sit with the sense of gratitude I feel for so much support in my life. I am reaching for words to describe what it means to me and find them inadequate in this moment.