You had a rough night last night. You couldn’t sleep because you were sick, and your mind kept circling back to the book project and how it seems like it’s taking forever to get the building project rolling. This, you think, is because most buildings are square and so they remain stationary.

You woke Pete up and expressed your concerns. Pete was incredibly patient with you – he did not say, “we’ll talk about this in the morning”; rather, he agreed with you that we need to put a fire under the butt of some of whom are involved with this.

He did go back to sleep, but you remained wide awake, thinking, thinking, thinking, and stressing, stressing, stressing about how difficult it is, attempting to make space for books when seemingly, no space exists.

Bookcase

And you thought today about how you fell behind because yesterday you were sick and stayed home, thus doubling today’s workload. You had to sort all the kids’ books you had placed on the table and find a place for the nonfiction books that you had placed on another table. You usually have a few days to deal with getting things in order, but not this time. One of the church directors is scheduled to appear on Thursday, and so, in order to please the powers that be, you had to make it so that the books appeared to be less obtrusive. Hah, you thought.

You usually are able to figure out how you’ll deal with the book traffic, but as you lay there, this seemed like an onerous task. It was for this reason that you began exploring one way travel options, in hopes of relieving what has become a very stressful volunteer position.

Nothing realistic came to mind. Nothing at all.

You fell asleep at 7:45 a.m. but woke at 8 a.m. There was no getting back to sleep, so you got up and assessed your health situation. Your illness, you decided, had defined itself as a common cold. You were stuffed up but draining. And you felt strong enough to deal with what, hours before, seemed like an insurmountable task.

And once you got to it, it wasn’t that bad. You were able to pass on a box of children’s books to Bill, right off the table. And you were able to box up two boxes of books each, for Dillingham and King Salmon.

Then in walked Holly, a volunteer who saved the day. Her husband works for a food distributor, and he can take books to villages. Boxes are now nearly ready to go to Dillingham and King Salmon. Tomorrow you will call the other places on the list Holly sent to you a few days ago.

And this evening, as you were headed out the door, the phone rang. It was Tracy from the Mat-Su Health Foundation. She remains very supportive of this project. And she liked your analogy, that it feels like we have the pieces of the puzzle but no board. She’s now going to give an assist, and so maybe, just maybe, we can get this building project moving.

Next: 267. 9/29/22: When Tunes run through your Head