Fade to Gray: The grout of life
I have several dogs and most of them are rescues, the rejects that the world doesn’t want, or better put, can’t see are special.
Two are deaf, the third deaf and blind. The newest puppy is Bella and like all pets, they eventually reveal their own unique personality and cause their own special brand of mayhem. In Bella’s case it is digging. She digs holes outside, which is a danger for the dog who can’t see and I’ve recently discovered she likes digging inside the house too. How is that possible, you wonder? Why, let me explain. We have a fireplace and in front of it is a three by five-foot area covered in special tiles. They’re special because if the fire spits out an ember it doesn’t set the house on fire. The other day I heard ferocious scratching and when I went to investigate, found Bella digging the small spaces in between the tiles. She was trying to dig out the grout. Now mind you, this is grout that has sat in place for, I’m guessing, forty years but it only took a 14-pound dog ten minutes to tear most of it out.
She’s nothing if not industrious.
What surprised me next was how quickly the tiles came apart without the grout helping hold them in place. Being a writer, I couldn’t’ help notice the metaphor that my puppy had just dug up…literally.
After scolding her, I found myself sitting in my recliner looking at the loose tiles and missing grout and couldn’t help but think about our lives right now. Life, the big stuff anyway, is full of pretty tiles that get most of the attention. Graduations, marriages, divorces, births, deaths, etc. Big stuff that grabs the headlines and will someday fill our obituary pages. But the rest of life is the grout.
The minute, seemingly insignificant events that tie all the big stuff together. The friend at work who introduces you to your next spouse at a company picnic, that person is the grout.
I know it doesn’t sound very attractive describing it that way. Nobody would announce to the room, “Attention everyone, I just learned my name isn’t really Bob. My name is Grout.” But grout is important, and we don’t pay enough attention to it.
Take this pandemic we are living through at this very moment. I’ll bet you all the eclairs at Dunkin Donuts that you are finding out, right now, who you can really depend on. Everybody is your pal when the nonstop party train of life is rolling along but it’s now, when you need a babysitter or help with income or a pal to lean on; where are they? I’m even counting family in this too. It is often inconvenient to be there for people when you yourself are dealing with stress but that’s the moment it really counts.
Giving you a ride to the airport when I was already going there isn’t a big deal. Setting the alarm to take you at 5 a.m. so you can avoid paying for a week’s worth of parking; that’s a true friend.
People keep asking me when I think things will go back to normal, as if I have some special inside information because I read the news on TV. I keep telling them the same two things- not for a while and when it does it won’t be the same normal. This pandemic has forced us all to be a little less social and find ways to survive without leaving the house. I doubt that’s going to flip back to how it was before.
The lady who is now ordering her dog food on Chewy and having it dropped at the door, won’t likely be back at Pet Smart when this nonsense is over. And I’m not sure man of us will be back in a movie theater when they reopen unless it’s a blockbuster film. The days of exposing yourself to crowds that are often coughing for a mediocre film starring Chevy Chase are probably toast.
It’s just not worth the price of admission.
Getting back to the grout though, don’t miss this horrible experience as a chance to learn something about your own life and who you can truly depend on. You’re finding out right now. And if you are the one who has not picked up the phone to check on someone you say you care about, take this as a helpful nudge to do so.
This pandemic was treated as a bit of a joke when it began. I saw lots of silly memes and videos on Facebook the first two months, mocking life under quarantine. Notice how you don’t see them anymore. That’s because this isn’t ending for a while, perhaps not until we have a vaccine.
As for me, I stopped by my local True Value and purchased a container of pre-mixed grout and a special tool to fix those loose tiles. Something tells me the minute I reattach all them, little Bella will be right back at it. Kind of like life right. The same routine, day after day. I sincerely hope you are keeping your life together right now.
That grout is so important.