Maggots and Confrontation Procrastination

My neighbor hasn’t taken out his trash in a couple weeks now. There must be some rotting meat oozing just under the lid, because the air is rancid and thick with flies out back now. I went to throw some trash in our bin this morning when I met the maggots. Apparently, they built a little maggot bridge and made their way into our garbage now too. We went through a similar ordeal a couple months ago when our neighbor decided to casually toss some fish remains out back. A few days later when it became unbearable to even step out on the porch, we both took the garbage to a nearby retention pond to dispose of the fish skin and entrails and disinfect the trash bin. My stomach turns just thinking about the nefarious odor that proceeded from that trash, and the sickly sight of that rotting, maggot-infested fish. The burden of what I must do tomorrow is sitting heavy on me. There are few things in life that I hate worse than maggots... although, confrontation may be one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I do it on a regular basis. The nature of my job demands it. But I don’t like it. And when it gets to be too much, every once in a while, I’ll procrastinate. But delaying the inevitable conflict is somewhat similar to avoiding the stench of maggoty meat – it only gets worse with time.

minutes in the making -- work and play

So I’m sitting out here at the tiki bar by the pool at a little Marriot resort just south of Ft. Pierce. I have a nice buzz going from a rum and coke that I mixed in the room and a beer I purchased at the bar that I’m milking with magnanimous leisure. In the reflection of my computer I see my wife and neighbor tossing my daughter around in the pool, and her priceless giggle is filling my ears with a joy that little else can match. Could life be any better at this moment? Well… yes, it could. The reason I’m on the computer is because I’m the middle of an online teaching term. I could be in the pool, playing with reckless abandon, but my conscience demands some measure of diligence and discipline even on our miniature vacation. Purpose and play (sigh). Sometimes I’d like to do away with the former and live it up in the latter. But even if I could, the novelty of that notion would only last so long… I know. Still it’s hard not to be in moment; it’s hard to straddle the life of leisure and livelihood. I’d eagerly give my all to each and not temper the one by the other, but it’s difficult to manage this menagerie of minutes which we’ve been given. God, give me wisdom.

On dawdling toddlers

I walked out of my house the other day and heard my neighbor two buildings down yell at her three year old son, “I said get up into your car seat!” Obviously, the child was not listening well, and obviously, his mother was in quite a hurry. Her tone communicated well her rushed exasperation which bordered on anger. Initially, I was inclined to send a subtle non-verbal signal to my wife, consisting of raised eyebrows and pursed lips, communicating something like a judgmental jab at the woman’s parenting skills and general demeanor toward her child. But before I had a chance, my conscience caught me, reminding me of the many times we correct our own daughter for “dawdling”. What this often means is that we’re running late because of some fault (genetic perhaps) of our own, and so we rush her along to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush her teeth at speeds akin to the auditory effusion of an auctioneer. I was particularly convicted of this around the same week that I overheard my neighbor’s annoyance. We hurried our daughter along one morning with admonitions such as “don’t dawdle” when the most poignant words came from her mouth, “but I was looking at the flowers”. Immediately, the expression, stop and smell the roses came to mind, and I realized that at times we force her out of the comfort of her carefree frolic and into the cast that contains our own worries and headaches and hardships, into the mold that we ourselves have often succombed to -- that of our ever scrambling society. It wasn’t the first time (and I know it won’t be the last), but I learned a valuable lesson from my 4 year old daughter that day.