Psychic Charge

I crawled out of my bunker this weekend and did a couple of things to recharge the old psychic batteries, which were seriously depleted.

Saturday began with a quick trip to my local police department where I underwent a background check to clear me for substitute teaching. I'm pleased to inform you I am not wanted by law enforcement, although the school department probably won't want me either.

Then I headed to Boston to visit a friend in the hospital. I won't go into a lot of detail about the experience except to say it was intense. I felt pretty helpless actually, which you might think would suck up any remaining psychic juice I had left in me. Counter-intuitively, the distress I felt worked in my favor and nudged me out of the doom and gloom region into some slightly hopeful territory. Maybe it was because no matter how challenged my ill friend is at the moment, she's fighting like hell. If she can do what she's doing, I can deal with whatever.

On Sunday, my youngest son and I volunteered at Habitat for Humanity. My family has put in a fair amount of hours at our local Habitat chapter. It's physically demanding work, but again, you take out more than you put in. This is true of most volunteer experiences I've had in my lifetime, and it makes me wonder why more people don't volunteer their time. Of course, I feel the same way about exercise. Oh well.

As Harry and I spent the day measuring, cutting and hanging sheetrock, a few things went through my mind. First, I noticed I felt strangely serene. Maybe it was because I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find just the right remnant of wall board to fit in the hallway we were working in, which was very much like a puzzle, or perhaps an arts and crafts project except we were using screws instead of paste, and sharp knives instead of scissors. Perhaps it was due to focusing on the mind-numbing task at hand rather than musing about my evaporating retirement savings or collapsing home value. And Harry was learning a valuable skill, one he might actually use someday. I think that if my family had to build our own shelter (hopefully it won't come to that), we could do a fair job of it, although we probably need to know more about cement. We've always encouraged our kids to get their hands dirty and learn how to fix, paint, nail and otherwise rebuild the world around them. Although you might not draw this conclusion if you looked in their bedrooms.

The six hours of manual labor passed quickly, even though we were cold and thirsty. We'd made a small dent in the work necessary to build a house for Augustina, who was there working with us. I'm hoping that next time we go, all the walls will be hung and ready for painting, because I (inexplicably) love to paint. The life of the mind isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Now that shopping therapy is no longer palatable or even possible for many of us, I recommend spending your time and energy in the many volunteer opportunities available in your community. I guarantee you will be the richer for it.