The power in putting it out there
It was not more than a month ago that Ann and I sat in our home, contemplating what would stay and what would go. We’ve been here for almost a year, though it only seems minutes ago that we’ve relaxed into it — there was that much rehab going on.
So there we were contemplating some wheezingly old couches that didn’t fit the new home.
Ann had been looking on Craigslist for suitable replacements until I put the kabosh on the enterprise. In our current comeback mode the only ideal price was zero, and she hadn’t been able to find people advertising that low, nor even in the region of that low.
We had quite a list:
1. Replacement sofas or sectional for the living room
2. Daybed for my office so it could double as a guest room (and a nifty meditation-visualization-ooom-chack-a-lacka-boom spot)
3. Chest of drawers for Zane
4. Couch for play area for kids
5. Oh, and if we were to have our dream wish list, a couple extra lounge chairs outside for guests . . . .
Putting it out there
“We’ll just have to put it out there that what we need will somehow come for free,” I said.
Whoa, did I receive blowback! In Ann’s defense, only she had been looking at what was available out there for weeks on end. And she hadn’t once seen free listed as a price. In fact, everything was $500 to $1,000 or more per piece, and none of that was even close to what we’d pictured in our minds.
After she cooled somewhat — in that slow way lava cools — I repeated that I was going to put it out there. She agreed, and we let it drop.
Oh, Ann in her soft way may have mocked me. . . but we let it drop.
A decade ago we had a client offload two-year-old couches to us when they updated again — so I let a situation like that play in my head.
(Our pet name for that old set was HemingStone . . . the structural support for the furniture was from the largest bamboo we’d ever seen. We had no idea bamboo could grow so thick in circumference, so dense. When you gazed upon the furniture it seemed to have come from an unholy union between Ernest Hemingway and Fred Flintstone . . . .)
Maybe it could happen again times five . . . five clients offloading various pieces of furniture might seem unlikely when it had only happened once in my lifetime(!) . . . . But hey, what else are daydreams for if not to dream the unlikely.
Ann stopped looking incessantly and we went on with life.
Flash forward to today. Our home got a makeover last week, compliments of a friend of ours who was downsizing considerably. We were at breakfast one day when he asked if we could use any extra furniture. A couple hours later I was at Paul’s home, witnessing something extraordinary come through him.
For fun, let’s review the list:
1. Replacement sofas or sectional for the living room
There was an exquisite sectional for the living room!
Note: Ours was 20-plus-years old, was previously owned, and experienced much duress at the hands of kids and dogs.
Paul’s sofa was 20-plus-years old too — but had been owned by a single, petless, meticulous man. It was so youthful in appearance it could have starred in a skin-cream ad.
2. Daybed for my office so it could double as a guest room (and a nifty meditation-visualization-ooom-chack-a-lacka-boom spot)
There’s a smart-looking sleeper sofa in there now. It looks like an office suite — and can double as a much-needed guest room!
3. Chest of drawers for Zane
Yep, can you believe it!?
4. Couch for play area for kids
Nope. Apparently this item is coming later. Insert smiley emoticon here, baby.
5. Oh, and if we were to have our dream wish list, a couple extra lounge chairs outside for guests . . . .
Not only this, but also an additional five-piece outdoor table set too.
I imagine this is the partial checklist for a successful putting it out there:
- We’d been fantasizing about the possibilities, playfully — check
- One of us desperately wanted it (Ann) — check
- Another of us believed it could drop from the skies, manna like — check.
Why close off any possibilities, ever? History and your own experience prove that the seemingly impossible, the possibly unlikely, and the probably won’t happen happen all the time.
Accept it, this playground in Creation is mysteriously, inexplicably, freakishly beautiful.