Washing dishes

I was just looking out the back window. It's something that I love to do because the view is of a wide backyard, followed by woods, leave scatters, and some green in the middle, where I found easter lilies yesterday. There is an old dog house that sits out there, and I don't know its story...but it always seems to be waiting. And that made me think of patience. That quality that is often so absurd to me. How can one be patient while Big Ben is in the world, counting down my minutes, hours and days till death? And yet, I believe that patience transcends time and death and exists in the realm of faith. A fitting subject today, I reckon.

The things I am impatient about, are the same things I don't have a lot of faith in. Certain relationships, a handful of recipes (anything that involves baking for one!), the conclusion of books by unknown authors (and some known ones, when I venture into Stephen King land-he always made me suffer with weak endings), new cds (I have to go through and get a blurb of every tune before I can just listen all the way through), my dog's misbehaviors, work stuff, self-growth. I guess that the list could go on forever. I have heard the answers "YOu are everything right now" "live through your intentions" "you were born whole". I don't buy them...basically because there seem to be so many happily unfinished people in this world, that I am terrified to sit back and be the same way. I don't want to be okay with the fact that sometimes my life isn't what I want. I want to fix that. I have to fix that. And there, you see, is where I lack the patience to let the world fix it. Live faithfully. Patiently. Be still. Navigate nothing.

I'm lost to this concept. Basically because the dog house, sitting in the back yard woods seems lonely. Seems to have no purpose. And I build tiny dreams for it. I imagine little rabbit families, little mice homes. But the thing it was built for does not live there. And it looks hollow to me, and not just empty but expectant, and not just expectant but disappointed, and not just disappointed but sad, possibly heartbroken.

What could the house have done though? It could not call its own dog. It could not restructure itself into something else (a birdhouse, a pile of wood, an aeroplane). It is what it is, and whatever emotion it might (and I realize that wood, as we know it, cannot fathom emotion) encounter, it must at some point accept and have faith that its purpose has been met. At some point there was a dog. Now, it waits for another. It provides a visual point of reflection for me. It may house tiny live things, or leaves that have blown there. It could be a teacher for me about patience, tolerance and faith. It doesn't crumble by the weight of its silence. And it doesn't flee to some other place looking for fulfillment. It sits secure in its woodland home and waits for what is next, if anything, ever. It stays to see what will happen next. And exists only to find out, faithfully, what it must become or endure or experience tomorrow, next week, next year. Patiently it waits for the next evolution. But it is a dog house, and I am a girl. I'm not certain there are parallels for us two.