Jane Doe, Alive and Well

We knew there was a concrete slab underneath the ol’ rotting porch (see previous post), but that’s all we knew. No idea of what kind of shape it was in, just that it was there.

It’s there, all right. Now we know why they built the porch over it.

It appears that the slab didn’t fare so well, since it’s broken into about six pieces. Possibly the prep work wasn’t done correctly, so the ground sunk a bit, and then the slab broke.

It seems that instead of fixing the concrete, the porch was built over it. Or, maybe they built the porch and then some time later the concrete broke. Maybe the construction of the porch caused the concrete to crack. Who knows?
The people who do know what happened and why are long gone. It may not even matter why it happened….we still have a broken slab of concrete that we have to deal with, and who knows what awaits us under the rest of the porch? Spiders and centipedes and uh, more spiders, oh my.
So we didn’t create this problem – it came from history. But we inherited it (bought it, actually), so we get to deal with it.

Sums up a lot of problems, doesn’t it?

A lot of “stuff” in life we didn’t cause ourselves, but we still get to deal with the effects of it. And sometimes the people who could do a little explaining of what happened just are not available for some reason or another.

So, when we finally notice that something in our personal life, for example, is not working well anymore, and we decide to change and are brave enough to ask for help, and start to pull off those old rotting boards in hopes of putting something new and functional down….who knows what we’re going to find buried underneath all of that decaying wood? It could be stuff that was broken decades ago that was attractively covered all of these years. It might not even be something that you played a part in breaking. You’re stuck with the pieces. Then you’re face to face with the rest of the porch, wondering, do I even want to go there? What else may I have to deal with? Is it worth all the work I’ll have to do?

This applies in so many situations, not just in our personal lives. I had a conversation with someone recently trying to fix something broken in our community. He was discouraged (but not surprised) to find out some people don’t want it fixed. They’re like the nail that refuses to be part of the new porch, the broken piece of concrete that refuses to come out so a new and functional pad can be poured for future generations.

There’s a lot of disrepair all around us – in ourselves, our marriages, relationships, community, country, world…it can be a bit discouraging. I know I felt a bit discouraged when we tackled that old porch, only to find underneath it a bunch of broken concrete that will take an enormous amount of effort to fix.

But then I saw what had been going on under the porch, all those years.

Leaves had blown in through the cracks in the wood. Settling down into the dark and dank environment and being undisturbed for so long, they had deteriorated into the most beautiful compost – moist, crumbly, dark, pebble-free leaf mold. The kind you pay a lot of money for at garden stores to amend hard and unresponsive soil, to turn it into the kind you can plant in. If we had not torn down the porch, I would never have known that “black gold” was there. It would have stayed buried under the rot, slowly making more compost as the years went on, just waiting for someone to come and change the old rotten porch, then scoop it up and use it to make new things grow.

The Jane Doe Regular Ordinary Citizen Heroes*** Award goes to.....
All of the people who turned out to help at the Sherwood Forest Kid's Disc Golf Course . These R.O.C.H's*** dug holes, lugged rocks, hauled water, poured concrete and did whatever dusty and dirty work was needed to get the course ready for play. This is a completely ordinary citizen driven project. Much applause to those who jumped through hoops and make the changes needed so our kids have another venue to be playing out in nature. Applause also to those who donated talent to make the project artistic and and cold hard cash, because, well, that's always needed to get things done.

***R.O.C.H. pronounced "rock" as in, "you regular ordinary citizen hero, you are a rock in our community, a pillar of strength and decency", and "you rock!" as in you are awesome!! Clever, eh?
Oh, to be named as a Jane Doe ROCH, it's the ultimate compliment in life.
The Few, The Proud, The Jane Doe R.O.C.H.s.