viva la revolucion

       Laura has been the Principal at Fieldston Upper for almost two weeks now. She is glad to be there, but feels a bit like Hudson River flotsam. Her office isn't ready, so she's planted herself in the reception area, between the African violet and the copy machine. Our little co-op isn't ready either, so last week she rented the spare room of a nice retired couple in Yonkers. That had its own strains, you know? It wasn't cheap, for one thing. But also, the host was so warm and welcoming that Laura couldn't just flop down after work. The host wanted to hear about Laura's day, to see what she was wearing to dinner with her new colleagues, have her twirl around, all that. That's my job.
       This week (and next) the School has kindly sprung for a hotel. Laura is living on food from the Applebee's that is adjacent to the Hampton Inn. She's bringing home her pile of plastic takeout containers so we can give them to the guy who uses them at his booth at Sunday's Farmer's Market. It seems the least we can do in a generally unecological situation.
       I'm worrying more and more about our gigantic, collective ecological shoes. During the week I am bouncing around, quite literally, by myself in a house that was built for a family. We love this house, and keep thinking that it will someday be such a great place for our hypothetical grandchildren to visit. And on Thanksgiving when there are 17 or 18 warm bodies sprawled all over the house, Laura and I feel like we live in heaven. It's a little louder than heaven is usually depicted, and there's a lot of cooking and more dishes than you can shake a stick at (which really doesn't work at all), but still.
       But I am not sure Thanksgiving is good enough justification to have so much space. I feel like maybe this lovely old home should be one of those places that a gang of revolutionaries take over, use as a center for their revolutionary activities. They storm in, shouting that it's too big for one person -- and they're right. But they toss around our books and break those clay figures the kids made when they were little. They neglect the plants, leave dishes everywhere, and replace my dad's paintings with graffiti. I just hate that. I wonder if they will let me keep my home office, or if they maybe think counseling is a sign of pre-revolutionary alienation and brainwashing.

       I wish I would welcome the revolutionaries, but I'm so attached to my life as it is. Just terrible. I am trying to live in a way that makes me worthy of all my blessings, but I want my green smoothie and eat it, too. I am trying to use the car as little as possible. Last week I mapped out a 6-mile walk to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where I needed to return a small rug for the bathroom I painted the moment Laura drove away. Finally I realized it would take me all day to walk to the store and back, and decided that perhaps the earth would forgive me if I drove there as long as I felt kind of bad about it. So I drove to return the mass-manufactured rug, and came home to search on Etsy to find a homemade, cotton rug. ¡Viva la revolucion! Viva la humble, ambivalent, imperfect revolution within me.