Cacophony

5:30 am 

The cranes and backhoes began their work two houses down. Hammering and drilling followed for the inside jobs. 

I rolled-down the slats of the living room window shutter, up early to see what the commotion was about. I called my wife in the kitchen. ”This is bullshit. Bad customer service on the part of the contractors. It’s 5:30 in the morning. The sun’s not up.”

She hurriedly arrived and stood at the window, fearful I’d storm-out and give the builders a piece of my mind about disturbing the neighbor at the crack of dawn. ‘Old-man rage’.  

I opened the door, still in my bathrobe, my Pyrenees, Bella readied for an attack; a soft bark at the now behemoth concrete mixer grinding out noise, yards away.

I’d been here before. The neighborhood was the oldest in town. Most homes were approaching 100 years, some older. Remodeling was a common thing. It was ongoing.

“Remember what you said about the long view,” Cindy cautioned me. 

It’d been several years earlier when a neighbor graded-down trees for a garage. It was all I could do to not explode. The killing of trees incenses me.Tear down paradise, put up a parking lot. I had no control over their decisions. They had a right to do what they wanted with their property. But, I voiced my thoughts. I did so with a light smile, trying not to reveal my anger. Keeping the peace was the long-view. 

But this morning, these yeh-whos, didn’t seem to care that they could be waking up people.  

A workman shook out a cigarette. The concrete truck now discharged the ready mix down its elephant trunk chute onto the house's driveway. 

Shouting. 5:40 am. Radio blasted out a first morning county tune.

Bella waited for my next move. My wife said, “Remember Pollyanna.” 

“Remind me,” I said, still distracted, looking out.

“Well, she was a poor girl and wanted a doll for Christmas, but only got a pair of tiny crutches. She played the Glad Game her dad taught her. Instead of being miffed about her doll, she said, “I am glad I got the crutches. It reminds me that I don’t have to use them.” 

“So, she reframed the situation?” I said.

“Reframed, well, you're the counselor. I don’t know. She shined sunlight on something she didn’t want. But was reframing something even known about when Pollyanna was written?” 

I took a seat on the living room couch and googled both Pollyanna and Reframing. “Dr. Goggle says, "Pollyanna was written in 1913, and Reframing (looking at a situation from a different angle) came into use in the 1950’s and 1960’s as a psychological technique.”

A second concrete truck pulled up. I got up to assess. 

Cindy handed me a cup of coffee. “So, the Pollyanna story preceded reframing.” 

I sat again. Bella jumped and nudged me for an ear scratch. “But, Stoicism preceded them all,” I said. “Epictetus, who was once a slave, and became a Stoic sage said, `it’s not the thing, but how one looks at the thing.´ Nothing is original.”

“Another way to look at this is that the house will look better once it's remodeled and will help our property value,” Cindy said. “Despite the hour of the day.”

“And these guys are doing what they’re doing to get the job done. Plus, there’s a heat warning out too. So better to be an early bird.”

“Wow! Very impressive,” Cindy said. “You certainly settled quickly.”

Chuckle. “Just needed a prompting.Thanks.”  

I took my Blood pressure, 138 over 72. Pulse 83. Not too bad for the early morning hours. And even with a bit of a mild perturbance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Harvard-trained theologian, believed that life is a series of lessons that must be lived to be understood. Our experience is our best teacher, he said. 

I wasn’t ready to hug the hammer-to-nail boys for arriving before sun up with their cacophony, but they were doing a job. And perhaps this pencil-to-paper guy needed his feathers ruffled to be reminded of Pollyanna’s Glad Game and the Art of Reframing.