Each day, I go outside and pick up the rejected building materials off the porch.
All I can think is, first apartment dear?
We all remember our first places, the one our parents tried to talk us out of...mine was in a semi-bad neighborhood, way too expensive and had orange counter-tops in the kitchen and gold shag carpeting and in the summer, lots of bugs.
It shared a balcony with the neighbor across the hall...a sweet seminary student who played awful guitar and sang like a folk singer on estrogen. Kumbya.
Below my apartment was the party crew, they sold pot and whatever else, there was a constant stream of creepy people in and out quickly...and the undeniable aroma.
They spent every penny on albums (yes this was the 70's) ... music blared non stop...no rest for the wicked...Lynryd Skynyrd clashing with upstairs Kumbya.
I thought I would never recover.
My first attempt at displaying my new haute design taste was a Naugahyde couch (you could just swear it was leather) and I let my boyfriend talk me into a coffee table made from the hatch of a boat...it was horrid...we broke up...he asked for the table, I gave it to the Seminary student.
I swear the place was haunted, I had terrible dreams there, always of someone standing in the bedroom doorway... it never really felt like home.
It's all a learning experience, sometimes we have guidance, sometimes we don't and we have to muddle through it.
Sometimes we have to be nomads for a while until we land home...and then it takes years to really understand how to put it all together, how to build your sanctuary... how raise your children in loving shelter.
So don't give up Robin...you'll find the right tree, porch, crevice...get past the first wrong nest and you'll build the perfect one and fill it with those blue eggs that only Robins can make.
There's a place for you, and you'll find it when you're ready for it.
