Dutiful

In high school I would lay in my bed in the dark, air conditioning blowing on my face (few things are such a signal of privilege to me as air conditioning), and wonder to myself why I was here: why I was born in the U.S., born to good parents, born into safety and comfort and opportunity. I was fixated on teenaged orphans in the Ukraine, and on teenaged refugees from Syria. 

How was it fair that God had given me such goodness and such goodness was withheld from others?

I felt strongly the call of Luke 12:48. As she saw me flounder with my direction in life, my mom would quote its charge to me often, along with Proverbs 29:18. 

When I went to Kazakhstan, I felt so much relief and cognitive harmony, that I was purposing my life towards giving back and doing something for the Kingdom with my privilege. But then I failed. I was terrible at it. Your setting is not irrelevant to your work or commission, but it is not everything. You do still have to, you know, work. 

During law school I felt of two minds about this. Teaching ESL was still meaningful. I got better at building relationships with my students now that I was back on my home turf. Or maybe my students did all the heavy lifting. But my future was not ESL. I was mediocre at it. It was not my goal. I studied law and eventually had to shift, leaving the ESL world behind and putting my hand to the transactional grindstone. 

Still, I found favor. Despite my bumbling and lack of inherent talent, the patient training and mentorship of other attorneys brought me into the good graces of those who could help me get where I wanted to go. I kept struggling non-custodial parents out of jail. But it was not enough for me. I got to criminal law--I couldn't keep these guys out of jail, but at least I was trying. 

I sat in arraignments, or in presentments, in front of judges who did not care what I said, if they did not outright shut down whatever I said, and I looked into the downcast or pleading eyes of defendants and thought, "They deserve so much better than me." I scrawled on my notepad, what am doing with my life? Why am I even here? Aren't I doing more harm than good? I felt a weight lifted off my shoulders as I packed up four DUI trial cases--all sure-losers who insisted on going to trial--and passed them off to a colleague. 

Now, as I struggle to provide any comfort to noncitizens caught up in a system that is fundamentally unfair, I ask myself, why am I doing this? Isn't this a waste of time? Am I cut out for this? On the one hand, expectations are lower in immigration court, and I thrive under low expectations. But on the other hand, the stakes are higher, and I find myself splintering under the pressure. Maybe it was time to give up and find a legal job doing doc review or contract drafting or something where I did not have to carry other peoples' suffering. 

I felt the air conditioning in my car wash over me one day on my way home from work and the Spirit brought Luke 12:48 back to my heart. 

The goal of life is not to avoid suffering. Not that suffering should be chased or embraced or called "good", but suffering is just a bi-product. It is pervasive. It will come to all of us, one day, in one form or another. And if I don't even try to stand with those who are suffering, can I even call myself a servant of Jesus? Is not a heart that is soft to the suffering of others the one thing that separates the sheep from the goats? 

What this means for me is, I cannot grow weary of doing good. I have been blessed so I can be a blessing. It is my duty to step into the opportunities in front of me and work at them faithfully until someone better equipped comes along. I can't shirk the challenges because my selfishness prefers the comfort of solitude to the rigors of defending others. When I feel the pangs of worry and stress, the answer is not to relinquish my work, but rather to steel myself against the discomfort, for this is my obligation as a steward of my privilege.

And it is more than just a mental choice to persevere. The emotional tax of this work is real. Nevertheless, my comfort is not within myself and my sense of obligation. Rather, my God will strengthen me to do the things that are hard for me. As I flex my muscles, He will fortify them. He will give me peace when I am troubled. And it is His love that compels me. 

Make no mistake, this is not to say that we should take on roles that we are not qualified for. Well-intentioned but naive self-appointed saviors have done more damage than those with nefarious motivations at times. Self-reflection, as well as diligent and disciplined work, is critical to ensuring that our efforts have their desired effect, and even then, we have to have the humility to recognize and repent of our failures and shortcomings. 

But it must never be fear or self-preservation that dictates our work or makes our decisions for us. 

Weatherstripping, sealing, and Reflectix!

One of my favorite accomplishments of the weekend was no longer having to use a ladder to hold the door closed. Peter reinstalled the latch. It is amazing! The door works! Ahhhhhhhh! Also, I washed all the mold and grime off the door, which was not a strictly necessary project but was immensely satisfying. 

Since the Airstream was sitting out exposed to the elements, unused, for many years, there is a lot of dirt, dust, and organic material in the window frames and crannies. Even with the skins out, and the new subfloor, and the Reflectix on the walls, the trailer still smells musty, and I am trying to control my impulses to engage in useless cleaning prematurely. 

W reinstalled the access doors and put new weatherstripping on them. We went with 9/16 width and 1/2 thickness. They ended up being too wide, so Peter trimmed them down with a razor blade. Thickness ended up being just right.

I finished up interior sealing and then did the tops of the windows externally. They look terrible. I used a clear polyurthane caulk and it is shiny so it catches the sun. It is bumpy because I didn't take the old sealant off. The clear looks better untooled, but I was forced to tool it on most of the windows because of the bumpy application. Then I decided to take some external lights off and I covered the sealant in crude from the lights. Ugh.

But the external red indicator lights are now replaced!

Peter's sisters are in the throes of SAT prep, studying 12 hours a day, every day except Sunday. They were willing to take a break from that and help us out for the right price. So while we were spending time with my family watching Hamilton, they were toasting away in the Easybake Oven taping Reflectix to the walls! In a few hours they had it almost all done. I don't know if it actually feels any cooler in there, but it certainly looks cooler. We had two rolls of 200 sq. ft., and it was just shy of what we needed. 

Coming up: Peter's mentor has some kind of a sawmill he is willing to let us use to turn the black locust tree Peter harvested into boards for our countertop and cabinets! We need to build the electrical components box while we are waiting for the components we ordered to arrive in the mail. Peter bought PVC pipes to redo the venting for the tanks. Blessed Will gave us the specs for his axel order and Peter has a welder lined up, so we might see about ordering those soon-ish. I need to finish drilling out interior rivets and stripping paint off the skins because we have a target date for skins back on!

More Preliminary Marriage Thoughts

Six months, y'all. I don't know, it feels like a milestone. I remember when we were dating I was so anxious to be past the beginning and into the middle, and I wonder now, we might be at the phase where I want things to slow down so I can really savor them.

The coronavirus quarantine precautions gave us a nice little bubble. We've carved out our selfish little routines and there's a lot of comfort in this. I take care of him and he takes care of me and we just get better at it as we practice more.

I want to have some kind of insight on our marriage, or marriage in general, but it feels both too new and too comfortable to force any kind of compelling reflections. I am just really thankful for my husband, for his love, for how my life looks right now. 

I was worried that living in Stamford, away from my family, my church, my community, my job, would send me back into the struggles that plagued my three years of law school. But so far, it has not, and I think it is because I feel safe and secure with Peter. 

It's Electric!

This weekend we spent all of Saturday and then an hour on Sunday working. The brevity was on account of how blisteringly hot it was. In the morning, Peter made and installed a patch where the TV antenna had been, and then removed the old back skylight, replacing it with a Fantastic Vent. During this time I tried mapping our wires, which in retrospect was probably useless work, but did give me an opportunity to inspect the existing wires and get an idea of how much we would have to run. 

Then, Will arrived!

We had reached out to a couple vendors about helping us with electric. First was Peter's brother's girlfriend's uncle who is an electrician--he didn't feel comfortable advising due to the unique nature of Airstream systems. I also messaged two RV retailers in Rhode Island (with service departments), thinking they might be able to direct my inquiry, but got no response. Then I sent an email to Dave Jewell at Cay Electronics on the island, who in fairness to him got back to me pretty quickly, but asked me to complete an audit of our electrical loads on our existing systems, which left me feeling overwhelmed. I also emailed Lithionics Battery in Clearwater, Florida, but ended up not returning their calls because we were looking for someone local. 

Enter, Will. Will and his wife Nicole were the first Airstream account I started following when Peter brought me in on his renovation plans. They caught my attention because they had only just finished their renovation as we were starting, and they had the same year and model as us, and they were based out of our area. Not a ton of Airstreamers in New England, so this was exciting!

Wanting to outsource the electrical work, and feeling discouraged about finding someone with such niche expertise, I messaged their account on Instagram and asked how they handled this problem. Nicole wrote back that her stepfather was an electrician, and that he was self-isolating because of coronavirus, but that her husband did their system and would be interested in helping us with ours, YASSSS! 

So Will inspected our situation, agreed to do the electric for us, and then gave up a boatload of free encouragement and advice about our renovation. It was so nice to hear from another Airstreamer that we were on the right track and making progress. Really excited to have him work with us! And also very excited to relinquish my stress and confusion about executing electrical installation. ;)

Other things that were accomplished: Airstream was powerwashed and leak-tested, simultaneously. No more black mold and mildew! Inside seams are 2/3 caulked. Access doors are removed and came back to our apartment with us for weather stripping replacement. KT lock came out of the door and is also down in CT with us for repair. Detached striker plates are re-riveted back on the windows and the drop-down step was sanded and sprayed with Rustoleum. Peter worked out how the piping for the tank vents will work, but we bought the wrong size pipe so we will try that again next time. 

Scaffolding is down! Roof is "done"!

A/C, skylight, and one fan down

Long weekend was a relief because we got to both work hard and rest hard. Peter got a jump on me getting to RI, so the A/C was 98% removed when I rolled in Thursday night. There were at least 25 screws and most were so badly rusted that he turned them into flat-head screws with the diamond blade. He set up a ratchet inside the Airstream, pressing on the inside bottom of the A/C unit to give it some tension, so when the last three screws were done, things happened fast! We slid the A/C off the roof onto the scaffolding and then Peter gave it the old heave-ho.

Friday morning we got to work on the left-behind sealant with scrapers and mineral spirits and Goof-Off. Peter got impatient and put a wire brush on the drill (we had used for getting rust off the frame) and BOOM, like magic, clean mounting surface. We enlisted some help to lift the new A/C onto the roof and four giant bolts later, tada! It was like, too easy? Ease of installation is the reward for what a pain the demo and prep is.

I put sealant and Flexseal in the old screw holes and shortly after that it started pouring, so we went to Home Depot and bought some #12 and some #14 wire. Our external indicator LED lights came, so we popped the orange ones off and installed those. They didn't come with ring terminals for grounding to the shell, so we bought some of those, too. Most importantly, we bought some Plexiglass, weather-stripping and jigsaw blades so Peter could make a skylight cover. I drilled out rivet stubs in the frame to prep for skin reinstallation while Peter tested and installed his handiwork.

Our Fantastic Vents had arrived also, and I was anxious to leave the Airstream as watertight as possible, so our last project for the day was to drill out the old vent and install the new fan. This task we actually felt the most prepared for, thanks to all the installation videos available on Youtube, this one being our fav. Peter's tip: be sure to drill the rivets all the way out the first time, not just the heads. He ended up having to drill twice. It took us approximately 90 minutes--our weekends feel so short, I am more cognizant now of the need to work quickly.

So pleased that the two major holes in our roof (the skylight and the front fan) are now plugged! And thankful for all the rain we got after the A/C install to test whether the sealant and Flexseal tape actually worked--it did! I still want to patch the hole left by the TV antenna mount (it has flashing tape over it at the moment--watertight but not longterm) but Peter is hoping to invest in an Olympic rivet grinding tool, and wants to avoid using pop rivets on the roof for the time being.

Next time: second Fantastic vent, external powerwashing and final leak inspection, wire mapping and running additional wires, and maybe beginning insulation??? I didn't inspect whether two weeks sitting out on the lawn had done anything to speed the remainder of the paint removal on the interior skins--but we bought some Citrastrip for next time. We also have clecos and, whoops, the tool you need to use them. The guy we were hoping to hire to weld the lift kit, axels, and outrigger repair sustained a tragic injury, so Peter may be tackling that task all by his lonesome on a more distant future date.