The Wake-Up Call in the Noisy Trucks

The sound of jackhammers has been replaced with the sounds of loud, noisy big trucks.

They rolled down my quiet street at 6:30 this morning, heralding another phase in the public works project in my neighborhood. The water pipes in the municipal system were replaced in the spring and they have been working on repairing the streets, sidewalks, and curbs throughout the summer.

It's been a mysterious and unpredictable process.

It was clear what the jackhammers were doing, what the noise and the disturbance were all about. Tearing up concrete. Preparing the ground for the coming work. 

But these trucks outside? What are they doing? I really don't know. It's a bit of a mystery to me and I trust that someone knows. At some point, the project will be over and the street will be back to normal - a transformation completed and a return to calm. 

There has been chaos for months. But the water beneath the street has been flowing smoothly through the new pipes all this time. It's the outer parts of things that are disturbed and seem off. 

It was interesting how the project went - a rush and fury to replace the pipes. I think the work was completed on our block in a day or two. They went block by block and had a way to bypass the system and keep the water working, for the most part, turning it off for hours at a time, and then on again, before the new pipes were in place and the water could be permanently rerouted. 

And then, nothing.

Nothing went on for a long time.

And then, jackhammers. 

I noticed them because I was writing. I was in a place of vivid noticing. I am sure there were jackhammers before also, when they replaced the pipes. But I was away when they were working on my block and the blocks around mine, a pleasant coincidence. 

Still, I notice that with transformation, there can be a seemingly invisible inner process that sparks a more noticable outer expression. 

It takes time and can be stop-and-start as it continues. We think it's done and a few weeks or months later it's back again, having replaced jackhammers with big trucks that rumble loudly, beep incessantly, and produce dust and a disturbing host of sounds as they complete their work and fix what had been disturbed and unearthed by the jackhammers. 

The Summer of Self-Love is a daily writing practice created to harness three months for thriving. The goal at the end is to host a dinner party. Sounds like an odd Hero's Journey, doesn't it? Most of them usually are.