People Get Ready

People Get Ready

One of the sad things about going on vacation is that it ends. My husband and two children visited family in Virginia last week while I tackled an extensive painting project in the kitchen. In the resulting quiet, I had a lot of time to think while I scraped and scrubbed and painted. I recalled the times when I was glad to see the end of things, when it felt good to know closure had come.

We tend to dread endings, especially things like birthday celebrations, Christmas, summer vacation. I’m the sort that will see a great expanse of time before me and arrive at a million ways to use it. Before I know it, it’s all done, and I can see that my expectations were far greater than circumstances would allow.

Such was the case in the kitchen. You’ve seen the home makeover shows. Here’s a word to the wise: things do not happen in real life like they do on TV. In between that shot of a tired, dirty kitchen and the panoramic view of the glistening, remodeled one is a long stretch of hard work, failed attempts and probably a lot of cussing. Not that I would know about that.

What got me glad about endings was the wallpaper border that encircled the five million miles of wall space above our cabinets. Apparently the man who hung it had a death wish for whoever had to remove it. Lucky me. It was applied with Gorilla Glue, I am certain, with a splash of Elmer’s, just for good measure. After two hours of hard labor, I had removed exactly one foot of wallpaper and half my hair.

So, it’s 2 a.m. and I’m bruised and sticky and three days into my project that has been severely handicapped by the super glued nature of that cursed wallpaper border. As I sat on the countertop in my crippled stupor, some abstract song faded on Music Choice and then one of my favorites broke out like a brave reminder. “People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’. You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.”

"People Get Ready,” a 60’s gospel tune recorded by the Impressions, is the ultimate regenerator. If you haven’t heard the song, then you don’t know what you’re missing. It is a soulful and energetic piece that always makes me fall front and center when I feel like there is no end in sight. I recommend Eva Cassidy’s version on her CD “Songbird.” If you listen to that without something stirring deep, I don’t care to know about it.

“All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’. You don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.” The lyrics talk about the end of life, when we leave this Earth and meet our maker. Far from a dirge, the rhythm, rhyme and searing melody had me considering how endings can be pure bliss. When you’re tired and weary, this song about death is a real picker upper. I know because after I listened to it, I made some serious headway on wallpaper removal.

Let’s just say that when the last of that begrudging border was scraped from the surface of my kitchen, I was beat up, exhausted, and still mad as the dickens that so much time had been spent doing nothing but taking care of the bad stuff. I had such grand plans! But now I can look at those chiseled walls and see that the end is in sight. My freshly painted cabinets look new again. My “Rain Lily” paint will cast the bright hue of sunshine in a big room where a somber, lifeless color has bothered me for years.

Things didn’t go as I had planned, but they went. And now I am off to the airport to join my family that I am aching to see. Don’t ever doubt it’s good to see some things come to an end. It’s just life’s way of delivering new beginnings, a chance to see that what’s a-comin’ could be simply glorious.