The Right Way

Uncle Charlie: “There’s a fine line between being independent and doing things your way and doing things the right way.”

I broke my bamboo laundry basket today. It’s like a hanging thing, it’s got a top and grooves below for two bags of laundry to slide in. It’s cheap. I knew it when I bought it. (I don’t invest a lot in furniture because I have a cat and am totally not settled on where I want to live permanently & I don’t want to have to move a bunch of heavy furniture, so I get stuff that I can take apart and put together myself.)

Anyway, I broke off one of the ledges, so I was like, “Oh, easy fix. I’ve got a hammer and nails.” When I looked closer, I saw it had been glued. “Hmm…,” I thought. “Okay, I’ll get my gorilla glue and try that. Now, what can I use for clamps? Oh, I’ve got this chip closer and these clothespins. Let me see if they’re big enough. Nope. Alright, time to pull out the tool bag.”

Found some nails that were long enough, sat down and tried to nail it in at an awkward angle.

“You should lay it down.” (Who was that?)

“I should be able to do it this way.” I was determined. (Okay, fine: lazy. I didn’t want to take everything off the top.)

So I’m hammering and the container I have some blunt scissors, lint remover, etc. in fell off and landed on my head. “Ugh.” (I didn’t hurt myself, but I do still feel it.)

I continued. The nail didn’t go in. I tried another one at another spot. Nope. Something else fell.

I conceded. I took everything off the piece and turned it on its side.

Saw Uncle Charlie’s twinkling eyes. (Ahh, Uncle Charlie! That makes sense. He was a carpenter.) There’s an older fellow with him, too. Further away, very faint. Has a beard. Also a carpenter. Not Johann. From 1700/1800? Heinrich? I’ll check the records.

…

Yep.

So, on a side note. I’ve been reading this book by Jack Schwarz called Human Energy Systems. In it, he talks about the different auric fields. As I’m curious about all of these energies around me, these ancestors, I’m seeing them in a completely different light. They are not outside of me. Like, I knew that, but I never “saw” that. I see it now. They are in my aura. And Heinrich, being so faint, is simply less of an influence. (So now, I’m wondering about the ancestors who have fully passed. Like my grandmother’s grandmother. She’s not in my aura. Is Heinrich in my aura still because he has some kind of existing karma? Like Stanley?

I know part of my purpose is to release ancestral karma, and I have and will continue to do that when it comes to me. (The rest is to simply enjoy the gift of life.)

Through research, I learned about a great-great (maybe 3g?) uncle (Stanley) who was run over by a car as a child.

— Jennifer Gorman (@hafinnej) September 23, 2021

Well, that was quite a detour in itself, so back to my story:

Bamboo is extremely difficult to work with, I was realizing.

So, I had the piece on its side. Nails still wouldn’t go in. Tried two. Both of them bent. THEN, they wouldn’t come out. (Do I sound like Amelia Bedelia yet?) “Why is this so difficult?”

(I know how to hammer a nail, by the way. I was in Penn State Habitat for Humanity (“Pounding ’em on the weekends!”) and even did a spring break trip with them one year. It was called a blitz build because there were groups from colleges all across the country who came together to build a community of homes for people. Each school worked with one homeowner. Except we had two. Because we’re extra like that.)