There’s a man on the roof of my neighbor’s house. He’s pulling up shingles and nails. To do this, he uses a tool that looks a little like a spade. He slides it under the shingles and pries them up. I can hear the scrape and thud as it slides under and then stops short at each nail. When the wind blows, it lifts the yellowed adhesive strips from the backing of the old shingles. The strips twirl in the air, spinning upward then floating down. I imagine his shoulders and arms hurt at the end of the day – I imagine they hurt before the end of the day – a type of pain one pushes through to clear one more section before catching a breather. Every so often he stops, drags his scraper a few feet up the pitched roof and then starts scooping up the pried-off shingles. They’re heavy and floppy and he tosses them over the edge of the roof on to a plywood board where they slide down into a bin below. The nails he didn’t pry up he hammers back into the sheathing.
Today is Labor Day – a holiday set aside to celebrate the American worker – a day that has become synonymous with the end of summer, a final BBQ, and ironically, a time to do some work around the house. The neighbor behind me is mowing his yard. Earlier, I was trimming the hedges, cleaning the gutters, and pulling some weeds. Since 9 am, I’ve been smoking a pork shoulder – for me, summer’s final indulgence.
While I feel like I should have made more of the summer – or at least the long weekend – I’m trying to remind myself of the subtle discoveries I’ve made and the small adventures I’ve taken. Not only did I visit Savannah, GA, but I rediscovered making real BBQ, along with the joys of coffee at a sidewalk cafe, live music in a park, a few hikes, the comfort of good books, and many walks with the pup in a nearby park. This past week, despite having to drive through a major storm, I got the chance to visit my daughter in Pittsburgh (it’s been too long) and see Glass Animals – a band I’ve tried to see two other times, but both shows were cancelled.
I’m sad to see summer go. I’ll miss my lazy mornings on the deck and the long slant of light in the fading evening. I’m trying not to jump ahead to winter, but already, the mornings are darker and the nights a little cooler.
It’s now late afternoon, the man on the roof has left. The pork has at least another hour on the grill, and the dog, with his belly full of food, is sleeping on the floor beside me (his wounds have mostly healed and his limp is gone). I’ve tried to write several times these past few days (weeks?) – each time, I sit there and nothing happens. On my drive in to work, I hear stories of capitalism run amok (big investors buying up cheap housing and raising rents and evicting people, while co-ops of tenants are being denied loans to buy the very same properties) and all I can muster is some outrage at an unjust system but nothing coherent or informed enough for more than a paragraph that sounds like an old man shaking his fist at the clouds. I’ve been reading a few different books (short stories and poems) hoping to be inspired – but the inspiration seldom translates to my own writing. Last night, I read a few poems that I was less than impressed with – a major poet (Bukowski)…. while reading his poems was a good reminder that anything, even the mundane, even the vulgar (and he is vulgar), could be written down, could be considered publishable, I still stop short because I’m hung up on this notion that I need to say something of value. I get frustrated with my lack of stick-to-itiveness. Scrape and thunk – this is no way to strip a roof, let alone become a better writer.