I’m substitute teaching again, this time at the school I retired from 9 years ago. As I introduced myself at the preschool faculty meeting, I realized I was the oldest person in the room. Several of the teachers had once been my students. And where I had once been respected as a senior member of the faculty, I was now just “a sub” who needed to learn the ropes. In 9 years’ time, many things had changed.
My assignment was TV Media, lab classes in which students produce a daily newscast that goes out to the school and community. My background was not as useful as I’d hoped it would be. I could edit video, yes, so I could help with that. Preparing scripts? Preparing graphics? Pushing it out to cable? Not so much.
I felt old, out of step, and unskilled. On the bright side, I knew most of the parents from when I was their teacher, so there was that.
The first day, I walked into the lab to find an old friend: this chair.
An old friend
This was my old desk chair, almost new at the time I retired. It had disappeared from my classroom within days after my departure, and I always wondered who claimed it.
Now it was here, beat-up but still willing to be of use. I could relate.
A month in, we’ve worked out a rhythm in class. Older students teach younger ones what they need. Our local cable channel provides excellent support for tech issues. The teacher on leave routinely responds to student texts, even though she reminds students she’s on leave. Everyone contributes what they can. I take attendance and try to stay out of the way.
Friend with face lift
And last Friday I gave my friend a face lift. The duck tape made a satisfying sound as I pulled it off the roll. I reinforced some spots that were showing wear. I replaced a couple of patches that were curling on the corners. And I taped some tears before they could get any worse.
Last December I tucked an amaryllis bulb into a box and put it on the shelf in my closet. I’ve had it for years, but it had only bloomed once. Each time I replanted, it would send up leaves but no flower. If it didn’t bloom this time, I was going to toss it.
In March I was startled to see that it had sprouted. It had a flower stem but no leaves yet. It was waiting, pale in the dark, for someone to notice that it needed a pot, some soil, and sunlight.
Over the next few days it greened up and sprouted a second stem. Today, 12 days later, the first stem opened.
It has never been lovelier.
Many of us are struggling right now with end-of-winter blues, with too many demands on our time, with too little confidence in ourselves. We want things back the way they were, when we were younger, stronger, more self-assured. When we were blooming.
I’ve been there, too. You feel neglected, unappreciated, maybe a little frightened that you’re not doing things right. You’re doing your best, but no one acknowledges it. Maybe you feel like a fraud. Listen: you’re fine. You’re in Leaf Mode.
The flower gets all the attention, but it’s the leaves that keep the plant going (with all due respect to the roots). It’s the leaves that make next year’s flower possible. All that photosynthesis! Dealing with those bugs! Recovering after storms! Those plain green exteriors belie the thousand tasks going on.
Step back from the blooming you don’t have time for now and embrace your role as leaves. You’re doing what you’re supposed to – trust that. If there’s something you can do better, then do better. Otherwise have confidence in where you are, have confidence in your contributions, even if they’re not perfect. Feed your soul with a healthy discipline, with gratitude, with insights.
Bloom when you can but take time to rejoice with the leaves.
I met with Robert DePietro to talk about refinishing my hardwood floors. He looked at them as if they were old friends, like he could feel the grain of the wood through his shoes. “Every floor tells a story,” he said. He showed me lovely photos of some of his previous work and quoted me a price. He said to allow 10 days for labor and another week for the polyurethane to fully cure, so altogether about 2 1/2 weeks. I hired him.
The hardwood floors in question comprise the entire second story of my house, so I had to move as much as possible from the upstairs to the downstairs. Despite multiple runs to the Goodwill drop-off box, my living room soon resembled an episode of Hoarders, with careful paths among stacks of boxes, clothes, books, and small furniture. I resigned myself to sleeping on the couch. “It’s just for a couple of weeks,” I thought.
I couldn’t get all the big furniture downstairs by myself, and Rob assured me that was no problem. I suggested putting all of it in one room, doing the other 2 rooms, and then finishing the third. Oh, no, Rob said. We’ll put the furniture in the closets. We’ll do the rooms, and once the polyurethane has hardened, we’ll pull the furniture out of the closets and do the closets. I thought there’d be a line in the finish between the room and the closet. Oh no, he assured me. “I’ll feather it in.” I had misgivings, but he insisted.
The first day on the job, Rob asked for 50% of our agreed total. I gave it to him. Then the delays started. He had trouble with his truck. The customer at the job before mine decided that he wanted additional work done. These delays seemed credible, and I was patient.
Each morning Rob would drop off Christian, who worked on sanding the edging by himself. Issues developed with stains in the wood, and Christian didn’t know what to do. He phoned Rob but didn’t get much help. His hand sander broke down, and he borrowed mine. Christian worked alone until all the edging was done. Three bedrooms, three closets, and a hallway. By himself. Rob came in the evenings to pick him up. The first week of this 10-day job suffered from Rob’s absence.
In the second week, Rob said he couldn’t find a drum sander that worked. They were waiting for a part for the one in Centerville. He didn’t like the one in Rushville because they charged too much. There wasn’t one in Connersville or Liberty. Late in the week he brought one in – I didn’t ask where he found it – and sanded the floors.
In the third week, he started putting down the polyurethane. He’d promise to arrive at 9, and sometimes he’d be there by 10:30. He’d put down a first coat, which had to dry overnight. I was stuck at home, waiting for him.
One day he didn’t show up at all. When I asked him about it, he said, “Oh, yeah, I should have texted you.”
This became a pattern for the second coat and third coat – show up when he felt like it, leave when he was done. I was trapped in the house, waiting for him. Communication was poor. When there were issues, they were never his fault.
• “Sherwin-Williams didn’t get my order in.”
• “I had to meet with a lawyer. One of my previous clients is suing me.”
• “I had to do some drywall mudding at another site.”
During weeks 3 and 4, they pulled the furniture out of the closets and started putting down the poly there. But it bubbled up and felt like sand when it dried. Of course, that wasn’t his fault, either. Sherwin-Williams gave him the wrong stuff.
“I don’t care about blame,” I said. “I want a solution.”
We spent week 5, when he showed up, trying to get the problem areas sanded and fixed. He told me several times, “That will buff out.” It didn’t. He said of another issue, “I’ll feather that out.” But when he finished, there was a clear line where the different coats overlapped.
Oh, and the closets were now only getting 2 coats of poly. Why? “That’s all they need.” I was unhappy about this. He shrugged it off.
I gave up on perfect closet floors, but the landing at the top of the stairs was also a bubbly mess. I focused my complaints there. Rob tried to sand it down by hand. An electric sander would have had a vacuum to suck up the dust, but he didn’t use that. Dust fell into the grain of the wood. He tried to wipe it up, but it left nasty white patches.
On Monday of week 6, he was late again. I texted him, “I don’t understand why you don’t finish this job so I can pay you.” He texted back that there was a problem at the bank. He said that he had been there an hour, waiting to be helped. (When was the last time you spent an hour in a bank without being helped?) He showed up half an hour later with Christian. Then he left, and Christian sanded the landing by hand.
Christian left around 2:00 without saying a word. I texted Rob, who arrived a little later. Together we looked at the sanded landing, patchy and white.
I asked him a simple question. Would one more coat of poly resolve this? He thought it would. I let that thought hang in the air and waited for him to offer to do that. He did not.
Instead, he introduced me to a hardwood floor cleaning product that he described as “the best,” something called Bona. “If you will use this on the landing several times, you’ll get the dust out of the grain, and this spot will shine.” He handed me a partially-used box of Swiffer-style Bona pads.
Making it shine was his job, not mine. I told him to pack up his tools.
For the record, I paid him the rest of the contracted price. When you get a bad haircut, you still have to pay the stylist.
Parts of the work he did are very nice. But he stretched the work of 2 1/2 weeks out over 6 weeks needlessly, and it still wasn’t finished. He said he was sorry for the constant delays, but he continued to have them. He wasn’t willing to fix the mess he created at the top of the stairs. And now I have to pay someone else to fix his bad work.
