Beginning, middle, end. A room gets gashed. Walls are sawed and...

Beginning, middle, end. 

A room gets gashed. Walls are sawed and boards of floors cranked up with a crowbar. A tub is yanked and tugged, like negotiating with a stubborn cow, and lugged down two flights of stairs from the third floor out to a garage where it looks all wrong, like putting that cow in a shopping mall, or a chandelier in a bathroom.

And then, middle, middle, middle, when all the work gets done.

After the holes have been patched, the floor leveled, the cement board tiled, the pipes plumbed, the ceiling painted, the grout dried, the tiles buffed, after the floor is swept and swept again, then vacuumed, then sponged, comes a moment when everything gleams with a newness that reminds all involved of the possibility of healed wounds and fresh starts, of coming out okay on the other side of change. That injection of optimism, the feeling of possibility, is, I think, what fuels the long and dusty middles.