Looking to tthe light

"Are you the outside agitator who's come onto our island to toss things up?," the voice on the phone asked.

Damn right, I told him.

I mean, in tradition but not law, people have redone their houses after 4 p.m. and on weekends, and Code Enforcement never got into the equation. Some of us do it by law. Silly us.

It's been an odd several days. But today Joe, who's been our painter's assistant and who lost his home in a fire a while back, came by to visit our painter Roy.

As I talked to Joe, whose center of gravity is somewhere near Saturn's belly, I looked around and thought not of what we don't yet have, but of what is here. I touched the wood.

I saw Ref putting up walls, and Bradley at his hip, and Nate. And Shawn being the captain, and his crew of Frank and the White Rhino and Kurt and Little Shawn and Charles, and Dollie doing payroll . . . .

And Arnold.

I looked around my house, my beautiful house, and thought, what great skills, and how freely shared.