the butterfly effect

It's been said that TIME is what prevents everything from happening all at once. If so, I think I just saw time jump into his car and two-wheel it around the corner and out of our life.

For eight years we've anticipated, contemplated, talked about and poked at remodeling our house. Eight years to plan, eight years to decide, eight years to prepare. Suddenly it's here, and are we ready? Heck no. But we will be; we have to be. Because come the first week of January they'll be scraping and chipping and jack-hammering the daylights out of a good portion of our house, and whatever isn't in a box and somewhere else by then will be covered in bits of ceiling and pieces of flooring and powder-coated in white- which is a nice touch for a Christmas tree, but not for the entire rest of your earthly possessions.

We bought a load of boxes to pack things in, but it's pretty clear we'll need more. Like I said in an earlier blog, you can collect a chunk of stuff in 29 years. I've been working my way through the "office" this week. The quotation marks around "office" are code for a room full of crap, if you'll pardon the scatological reference. This week in the office it's been adios old Southern Livings, with your tired styles from the late 20th century; adieu Taste of Homes, I don't have room to store you, time to look at you, or energy to cook you; and arrivederci old dried-up magic markers and faded construction paper, it's time you go to craft supply heaven.

How convenient if all I had to do between now and the New Year was to calmly go through each room at a casual pace, with time enough to linger over every little nostalgic nugget from the past. But time- you know, the one whose job it was to keep life manageable- just headed south to visit his relativities, and it doesn't take an Einstein to observe that in the DeLany universe everything can indeed happen at once. For even as we made plans for our house, the economy was quietly spiraling downward, causing the university where I work to change insurance companies in order to save money, thus obliging us to reconsider the timing of a certain someone's janky knee's replacement. Translation? In the next few weeks we will travel out of state for Thanksgiving, box all our earthly possissions, complete a number of pre-remodeling projects, replace John's 3rd body part in two years, and shop for and celebrate Christmas before relocating to our daughter's house for a yet to be determined amount of time. I have to admit I'm a little nervous. Alright, I'm a lot nervous.

Back home we'd say it's like trying to put 10 lbs. of sausage in a 5 lb. bag. However, a physicist might refer to it as the "butterfly effect." Butterfly effect- that has a nice, peaceful ring to it, now doesn't it?

Actually, the term "butterfly effect" came from a paper given by Edward Lorenz in 1972 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science entitled Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas? In other words, can a small, inconsequential event in one place start a chain of events that lead to a full-scale catastrophe somewhere else? From the looks of things at my house, I'd say yes. Evidently my failure to choose a "putting place" for one or two inconsequential household items like a flashlight battery or a can of Deep Woods OFF! when we moved in nine years ago began a chain reaction of untidiness culminating in the mess which I am now maniacally attempting to pack into cardboard boxes. Theorists might call it the "butterfly effect," but back home we'd call it all my chickens coming home to roost.

As the good Lord was fond of saying, "Let he who has ears hear."