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Heaven, it turns out, is much messier and more chaotic place
than I imagined.
When I arrive at the house, the party is already well on the
way.
There are people everywhere. Some teenage boys are throwing
a Frisbee on the front lawn. Inside, on
the floor of the front room, a couple of toddlers are crawling around the
wooden tracks, pushing Thomas and Clarabel, making choo-choo train noises. Their moms are satisfying their craving for much-needed
adult conversation. Drop-cloths are strewed
all over, with people balancing on top of the ladders and hanging from the sides of the vaulted ceiling, no safety nets in sight.
There is almost palpable energy exuding off the walls of this
place of creative chaos. Men and women
baptized into Sunny Side Lane and Golden Honey hews of yellow in addition to the glowing enthusiasm, or what Josef Pieper might call ‘divine
madness’...
Being a melancholic introvert, suddenly I have second thoughts... it all feels a bit too much, and I
consider the shortest distance to the nearest exit.
Just then my boss pulls up the driveway, having completed his
second run to Home Depot since the beginning of the day, carrying additional cans of
custom mixed paint. He seems genuinely happy to see me as if I am the only person
who got and responded to his invitation. He sets the cans down, walks me back into the houses
and introduces me to his good friend, Mike.
Mike will be my painting partner.
I want to say that I really don’t need a painting partner. That I already have painting experience and prefer working alone. Even as the words are on the tip of my tongue, I look around and notice that all the painting going on is
done in teams of twos or threes.
To a lone ranger like me, it seems like a bit of an overkill.
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