Lest ye be judged

 Everything is relative, they say.

It's funny what people judge you on, and what people think is acceptable.

I never quite figured all of that out, which has been somewhat problematic. 

I think growing up poor makes you hyper-aware of that thread or judgement that runs through life, like an electric current.

Humming away in the background.

Ben came to fix the danged old faucet, for hopefully the last time.

Ben says things like danged old faucet which endears him to me, even though he is slow as molasses in January, to fix things. 

Ben is from Minnesota, and he grew up on a diary farm.

He feels like my people, so when I ask how things are, and he says  

aint half bad,  

can't complain, 

I am instantly comforted.

I trust.  

I believe, and I love to believe. 

I think we got it licked, this time, though.

Got rid of that European shit and made it bullet proof. 

All last week I worried.

I worried myself just about to death, over what might happen.

With the faucet, with work, with money, with the middle east, with those bad folks beheading people, with why my dog pisses on the floor when someone comes to the door.

Not a damn thing changed as a result.

I felt picked apart, judged  and unworthy.

So today, when things really went to hell in a handbasket at work, I just fixed it.

When Ben came to fix the faucet, I laughed.

It's good to see you laughin' about this mess.

When I walked in this evening my house had two extra children.  

Not what I had hoped for after a long old week, but Freyja loves to drag company home, she has not been served well to be the child of someone that adores solitude and silence as much as I do.

Two extra, hungry children, that are at home enough to ask for food.  

I would have no more asked for food at someone's house, when I was a child, than fly to the moon.  

Their comfort and confidence endears these children to me.  

I judge their parents, because their children are at my house, running back and forth like it was the most natural thing in the world, wanting snacks and dropping crumbs on my floor, I judge them because the cuffs of their jackets are just filthy. 

I would never let my child go out in public with dirty cuffs on her jacket, 

I would not let my child roam the neighborhood without a snack, in one of those little half sized baggies.  

Maybe a water bottle. 

When I get like that,  when I pick people apart, I pour something out of that big cosmic cup. 

Then I fill it right back up, because these kids are happy, dirty, hungry kids, that are full of self esteem and resiliency and joy, which is surely as good a sign of good parenting as clean laundry. 

My faucet is fixed, I have water, and food to share, and my laundry is very clean.