Poetic Focus™ — Entry 14: The Spirit of Meadow House
Saturday Smiles: The Spirit of Meadow House
Saturday Smiles: The Spirit of Meadow House
I am so happy and grateful for Saturday Smiles — the one day a week where smiling is required by law.
My law, of course.
Saturday is the day I try not to take myself too seriously. The day I revisit the chaos of the week — or honestly, the past decade — and attempt to see it from a humorous angle.
I’m not a negative person.
I’m an intense person.
An intense high performer. A recovering perfectionist.
And somehow I got into the business of building… where perfection goes to die.
Actually, no. That’s not why.
I think construction was already in my bones.
My dad was in construction, and growing up, we never lived in a finished house. Ever. The moment one was finally done, he sold it and we moved into the next unfinished one. At one point we even lived in half a duplex while he built us a house from the ground up.
So I grew up seeing the bones of homes.
Electrical. Plumbing. Gas lines. Framing. Mechanical systems.
I learned early that water under pressure can carry things very far away.
Yes.
Plumbing too.
What I didn’t understand as a child was the magnitude of logistics involved in restoring a home. Now that I do this work myself, I realize logistics is an art form.
Or maybe a science… depending on how much caffeine and financial risk is involved.
But right now I’m restoring a home built in exactly 1970, and the second I walked into the sunken living room with the parquet floors, I immediately imagined OU students sitting barefoot around a conversation pit after a football game.
Cigarettes. Whiskey on the rocks. Walnut paneling. Low amber lamps.
Somebody says, “Put Dylan on.”
Cool people who think they’re philosophers having conversations nobody remembers.
Girls in suede boots pretending they’re Indian.
Back when the country still called Indians “Indians.”
Now we say Native Americans.
Which is funny, because when I picture my own parents in that setting, it couldn’t be further from reality.
My dad — straight out of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation — looked more like Elvis.
And my French mother’s beehive hair and pencil skirts would’ve never touched the shag carpet of a sunken floor.
They were closer to “Southern Cross” and the silent majority than Woodstock.
So maybe my fascination with bell bottoms and hippies is just my own delayed rebellion.
Either way, I’ve had my work cut out for me trying to bring this place back to life while still honoring what’s in the bones.
And I took on the challenge.
Now here’s the funny part.
Six months after we started this house, I’ve completed THREE massive commercial projects by comparison… while my contractors on the 70s house seem to have spiritually drifted into another dimension.
Like Judy Blue Eyes stole their tool pouches and raising the floor required a pilgrimage to the moon and back.
Meanwhile, I’m losing money nightly and drafting legal arguments in my head involving punitive damages because apparently I’ve decided I’m going to sue my own contractors and start over.
Full courtroom scenes.
Opening statements.
Cross examination.
None of which are ever actually going to happen, by the way.
But here’s the conundrum:
The place looks phenomenal.
Fucking phenomenal.
Excuse my French.
My mother absolutely would not.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I could still get grounded at 58 years old.
But the house is becoming so beautiful that now I’m intimidated to decorate it.
And that’s when it hit me.
Maybe the spirit of Meadow House isn’t speed.
Maybe it’s pace.
Maybe slowing down actually is part of the design.
A retreat.
A reset.
A conversation pit for the nervous system.
And honestly… pace might be the only thing capable of negotiating with my perfectionism.
Patience, however?
We’ll leave that one for another Saturday.
Smile.
It’s the law.
And —
Wake up.
Build anyway.
🏡 The house is the story. The lesson is pace.
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