The Beep

Ahhhh the joys and frustrations of city living.  The other day it was some lost soul (trying to be helpful?) using my husband's shovel to dig trash dirt out of the street, then throwing said trash dirt into my husband's wheelbarrow filled with good dirt we were going to use in our garden... WTF?

And now it's a mystery beep. This is day 5 of an incessant high pitched 'beep'-ing sound that beeps once at 1 minute intervals coming from some indeterminate location in our neighborhood block. Yes, we timed it. It never stops. Day 1: I was initially intrigued-- where is it coming from? This phase quickly turned to a state of paranoia-- is it a bomb?  Day 2: I tried to embrace the beep, to 'surrender',  as a self help book I'm currently reading tells me to do to the unknown variables we can't control. Day 3: I thought it had disappeared, and oddly enough, for a split second I missed the now familiar sound-- was I befriending my captor as Patty Hearst had? Day 4: When will it end?  Day 5: After being away from home, I walk into the door and the first thing I say to hubs is 'beep'. Success--we have finally figured out what it is-- someone's fire alarm is low on batteries in the huge apartment building across the street... they are obviously out of town. We've called the manager of the building and it's this whole process they have to go through since the tenant isn't there.

But it's not really about the beep, is it? Maybe I'm getting too philosophical about this, but I feel like there's a life lesson in here somewhere. I'm trying to be at peace with the beep, and all that it represents--which goes against every cell of my being. The beep could be my 2 year old throwing a tantrum, or my husband making a huge mess in the kitchen I just cleaned.

People go on intense meditation retreats, learning how to let it all go and reach this 'zen state' despite hunger, fatigue, uncomfortable conditions. I once bought this super cute meditation chair to inspire me to meditate, and before I even had a chance to use it, my cat puked all over it--- that was kind of a 'zen kill'. Somewhere between being a person with that kind of hard core meditation discipline, and my neurotic tendencies is my idea of a balanced person, I guess. The question is how to get there without turning into someone who sounds like a self help novelist or a yoga instructor.

Dandelions are starting to sprout up all over our neighbor's yard (damn renters!)-- the weed's presence makes me uncomfortable, in a way that only fellow gardeners can understand. I want to rip them out of my neighbor's yard and it is so hard to restrain myself--I have to admit that I actually have pulled a couple of them out.