Sanctuary, Sanctuary!!!!

There is a specific moment in each day that I blissfully look forward to with eager anticipation. It is the time that exists when I return home from shlepping teenage son to the subway station each morning. (Again, I must digress for a momentary rant. What is it about this ridiculous city that there is only one north/ south artery that is available to traffic between the hours of 7:00 am and 9:00 am? Every other possible road is blocked off with no entrance signs, no right or left turn signs or every other conceivable sign short of one of the "signs of the apocalypse". To make the traffic problem that much more intolerable, the geniuses who run this city have closed off 2 out of 3 lanes of traffic near the northern most subway station, creating a bottleneck that would make Coca Cola proud!! It often takes me 1/2 hour to 40 minutes to traverse a route that should take 15 round trip!!) Needless to say, after such a soul-crushing experience as that, this moment of my day is life-affirming. It is the time of day that I am blissfully and peacefully ALONE!!!!! The husband has gone off to his passion, the teenager is on his way to excel and the movers and shakers who are ripping my house to it's studs have not yet made their presence known. Alone time is not necessarily quiet time, although if that is what floats your boat-- all right then! For me, just the knowledge that I am alone with my thoughts, with my needs, with my stuff, even if it is only for a few precious minutes a day, is sacrosanct. There is a difference between being alone and being lonely. Loneliness, it has been said, is everything that it is cracked up to be! Alone time is essential to my mental health. I can stand back and evaluate and figure out what is next on the agenda. It works for me. Finding a place to be alone--now that is much more challenging. This destruction, as has been aptly chronicled, has pretty much shut down the main level of our home. The basement BR (before renovation) was a favourite stomping ground of older son (when he deigns us with his presence) and teenage son and his hoards and minions. Rarely has a weekend passed in the last 5 years that there hasn't been an entire NFTY event in my basement. With the transference of the kitchen paraphernalia to said basement, teenage son is caught between his stuff and ours. (The other day I actually watched him reach over and try to open the refrigerator without extracating himself from the couch in front of the TV!) No, the only viable sanctuary that has been available to me is the bedroom. Now our bedroom is not just a bed. It comes fully equipped with en-suite bathroom, television and a small sitting area consisting of two not all together uncomfortable chairs. It has become my oasis in the desert, my port in the storm and my anchor. My Sanctuary! It is the only place in the house that I can rehearse without interruption, answer correspondence and even play the occasional game of online scrabble. (isn't scrabbulous fabulous?) Unfortunately, it also means that I have had to fight with the husband to keep from turning my sacred space into his dumping ground. He has managed to dump the daily mail on the bed, leave the morning newspapers on the chairs for hours, and (my personal favourite) transferred his life-long chocolate habit to our quarters. (The husband is a self-proclaimed chocoholic! When we were first dating, he would show me his private stash hidden away carefully so as to deter his brothers and his mother. When we were married, he continued this practice so, that even up to the present day, I will still find chocolate hidden in various cupboards and drawers around the house.) Today, on my bedroom table, sits a large glass container of Hershey's kisses that he has moved upstairs so that he doesn't have to tread too far!! When Quasi Moto screamed for sanctuary, he was just searching for a place to be alone with his beloved. I, not unlike Greta Garbo just "vant to be alone!!!"

Inside reliable contractor is working diligently today and it looks like we may have inside kitchen walls by evening. Drywall is being affixed. This is so exciting that I might just plotz! The garage is becoming a bit of an issue as it is being loaded with all of the scraps and other "shit" that is not longer needed. They removed the dumpster at the end of last week and have not yet brought it back. I feel like I am living in the middle of a red-neck's yard sale. More pictures to follow.