I love the word "serendipity". I like the happy way it sounds; I like even better the idea of happy accidents, of stumbling upon good luck. (I like the movie Serendipity with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale too.) I don't find serendipity too often, and maybe you don't either...but maybe that's part of what makes serendipity so wonderful.
A little serendipity happened this week, and this is my story of it.
Tuesday night I was at work when my son texted me to ask: "You need some help on your house?"
Out of the blue, no prompting from me, and neither he nor his wife are readers of this blog, so there's no explanation for it besides pure serendipity.
I quickly ran through my head all the things I need to get done before winter, and which ones I could do alone and which ones I truly need help with, and while I was sorting that all out, Dylan sent another text. "Did you ever get those clapboards put on? If not, I'll be over Thursday afternoon to help with that."
Serendipity, I tell you.
So Wednesday afternoon I started doing this:
Which I finished in about 45 minutes and then forgot to take a photo. You get the idea, though.
Thursday afternoon Dylan came over right on time, and then the exciting stuff started happening.
"Jeez, Mom, where did you find these things?" he asked. "These boards look like they're a hundred years old."
"Most recently they were in Chris's basement, down the street," I explained, "but before that they were on that old house out east of town, Old Oaks. You know, the Slusher place? So yeah, those boards are more than a hundred years old. I think that house was built in the 1870s."
He laughed. "Most people would just buy new stuff. Not you!"
"New stuff costs like $250," I countered, "and it's not as good. This is from old-growth cedar, and even better, it was free."
"Do not take a picture of me, Mother."
"I'm not. I'm taking a picture of what you've done so far."
Oh, looky there, I accidentally got Dylan in the photo...how 'bout that?
Three hours later, including a break to get drinks at the gas station and sit down a minute or two, we were done. (And by "we", I mean Dylan was done working and I was done holding clapboards and mostly watching him.)
"Isn't it beautiful?!" I said when we stepped back to look at it. "Doesn't it look amazing?"
Dylan was skeptical. "It might look beautiful when you get done scraping all that old paint off and caulking in those seams and painting it. Right now it looks like a mess."
I think it's beautiful already. I think it looks like serendipity.