A Sunday Type of Building....

419 West Main ~ Merrill

"1-5-1.  Some days, I just want to think 1-5-1 in my quiet moments.... Something along the lines of "it is the pattern of that which has withstood.  It stood.  These bricks, a foot and a half thick....stood.  That is what they do.  They stand."

Hello. 

Daunting.  There are moments of sheer panic with the work ahead.  I remember though, as I started to pursue the purchase of the building, people would comment on the amount of work it would take to fix it, to bring it to code, to really 'make it' as a business there.  My reply would always be "Yes, it is going to be bad.  It will be the best kind of bad."  Eventually I stopped saying that but instead I let it roll in my head.  Still makes me smile.

In one day, I go through moments spanning the spectrum of feelings from "whoa" to practically high-fiving the concrete pillars.  (No, not true.  I actually have high-fived the concrete pillars.)  The truth is that I love the work.  I love the fact that I can learn with the building.  It is in rough shape, but has withstood time.  It has withstood storms, blazing humid, hot Wisconsin summer sun and years of blizzards.

It stood.

It is magnificent that way.  I touch its bricks which have laid perfectly straight from sidewalk to rooftop all this time.

It stood.

So now it stands roughly, but it stands.

*

I had two visitors today - the first since I have owned it.  Plus friends who noticed the door open and were checking on it.  How cool is that?  And it is a day like that, with events as grand as those which reminds me to get a guest book!

But it is that kind of building.  It needs people inside.  It has that vibe.  The sound, no matter if it is the outside traffic of semi-trucks and cars or the clapping of thunder overhead, rolls warmly inside those bricks.

*

Just as everyday of the past seven months though, the building reminds me that there is work ahead.  So amid the minutes of daydreams are also times of planning.  And times of legwork, paperwork...and more paperwork.  A project such as this one has caused me to not only plan, but re-plan.  Business plan?  Try five of them.  The building and I?  This is the one shot...  There is only one building.  Or, better stated (but worse language-wise) there is only one "this" building.

This weekend the building taught me a new lesson.  But it also reminded me that while I decipher exactly what that lesson is, I better get moving on wintering the windows.  With the building - it is never just one thing. (Keeps me out of trouble.  And humble.)

And?  It also taught me one more thing.  It is time to set goals.  The best part of that lesson and maybe as a piece of advice, if only to myself, is that I don't even need to know what those goals are.  I just know that it is time.

*

It is a perfect Sunday type of building with Sunday-type of thoughts.  Time to prepare for winter.  Time for people. Time to muse a bit.  Time to visualize a lot.

Tomorrow is Monday.

But today?  Today was Sunday...

And maybe the most meaningful way to celebrate the building, the building which was built as an armory, used as a school, then stood.......was to buy a ladder and some tools.  (OK, flowers and a huge Mason jar container as well!)

There is a chance that this story will make absolutely no sense to anyone but me.  Well, isn't that the way all good stories begin?

Thank you.  Immensely.

Blessings,

~ stephanie