Friday, May 12, 2006

Up on the beam

I worked 20 plus feet in the air most of the day Thursday. I was a bit scared at first but I told myself that I've been in worse height situations plenty of times. I am naturally kind of scared of heights but have mostly overcome my fear through internal brainwashing. I just keep telling myself everything is fine until I get distracted enough by the job that I forget that I'm in any danger. I like facing my fears and overcoming them.
When I was a child I was scared of most everything. Eventually I got it in my head that I needed to start to overcome my fears and it has been a continual process ever since. I remember having night terrors as a two and three year old. They mostly involved me climbing our stairs from the basement in slow motion trying to escape dinosaurs. I remember being completely stricken with fear during the day every time I would climb the stairs. I always ran up the stairs as fast as I could. I hated being the last one in line to go up. It was far too slow and my dreams usually involved not being able to scream while being attacked. I could have been easily ambushed during such a slow ascent while not being able to scream, no one would be the wiser.
Tristan has inherited my night terrors--sometimes he wakes screaming. I attribute it to having a creative imagination at a very young age. My consolation about his night terrors is that we still co-sleep. I recall never wanting to sleep alone. This was especially troublesome for my sister since I wet the bed until a comparably late age. Sleeping separate is a recent development for our species and I believe that is another reason why we are becoming more detached from our surroundings. Actually, I ended up co-sleeping with my sister, most every night, eventually if not right away. I have a special attachment to my sister probably because of it. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I know that my sister would protect me and loves me deeply--and I her.
Yesterday three of us set an entire timber frame wall and rafter in the great room. Great is for great-big room. It is beautiful and excellent to see it how it goes together.
I'd like to bring up the ridge beam that I cut months ago and possibly set the vertical posts for the milking shed. Having recent timber frame experience has given me incentive and the skills to finish our milking shed.
Yesterday I came home to visitors--it is nice to have guests. I played with all the kids. They play together very nicely. Tristan and Peyton exclude Drew in some of their games which I wish didn't happen but they'll have to work that out themselves. I also mowed more of the yard. There is still more to mow today. The yard looks so much better freshly mowed. Hopefully we'll also finish planting the garden--it should be dry enough.
Happy Mothers day tomorrow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It takes a strong man to be able to admit that he's afriad of things. I knew it! I suspected it for twenty+ years! You are afraid! I also knew you were a strong man from the word "go"! Stronger than me anyways...well, mentally, but not physically!

Danielle said...

I love way grass looks after it has been freshly mowed. We've been using our grass clippings as mulch along the fence row and in the chicken run. They love it.

Omelay said...

danielle,
we like the grass clipping mulch also. it is too seedy to warrant garden mulch but we have plenty of other places that compete for our limited supply.
matt,
will versus strength, you are one of the few people that knows me well enough to have seen me in short supply of both.

Anonymous said...

It was only recently that my daughter (now 25) told me that one of their biggest challenges to each other was to go down in our basement alone and touch the wall at the very back. They all did it, but they would run back to the light as fast as they could. Funny that I never knew this since I shared a similar fear of dark basements for far too long in my life.

Another good post.

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