How A Roofer Made Joy Jump Into My Day
This morning I woke up late… been feeling the dullness and fatigue of fighting with my allergies all week, and it being Saturday, I indulged myself. It was about 8:45am. I might have slept longer except for the sound of hammers and men’s voices outside my bedroom window. It seems that the neighbors on the next street over – the ones whose backyard meets our backyard with a privacy fence and a screen of extraordinarily tall photinias – was getting their roof replaced.
At first I was annoyed to be brought so rudely out of my blissful slumber. I mean, it was Saturday morning for heaven’s sake, and some of us might just want to sleep in for a change. But realizing that it was a lost cause, I decided to give up trying to fall back asleep. Resigned, I got up, walked to the kitchen on the other side of the house to put on a pot of coffee. Though more muted, I could still hear the hammering from all the rooms inside my house. Those workers were making a mighty big racket.
I don’t know the neighbors in that house behind us, but I tried to imagine their happiness over getting the roof fixed. Maybe they’d waited a long time to get their new roof and were happy to have good weather at last. That helped me feel a little better about the noise. Then, I wondered what our other neighbors thought about it. I wondered if they, too, were trying to catch some extra zzz’s this morning but were now either feeling grumpy or shrugging their shoulders over the situation like I was. Maybe they hadn’t awaken like I had, but, gosh, if they could sleep through that ruckus, they could sleep through anything!
Later into the morning, after some coffee and biscuits, I went to the bathroom that adjoins my bedroom to grab a shower. This put me into closer physical proximity to the roofers. As I went through my morning ablutions, I noted that in addition to the hammering, the roof crew had turned on some music to work by, and, from the style of music they chose and because of snippets of conversation I heard, I realized it must be a Mexican-speaking roof crew. One man in their group was whistling, too. His whistling had a cheery quality as though he was happy. I thought to myself, “Well, why should he not be happy?” I imagined that he might be happy to be working outdoors on such a beautiful day… or he maybe he was enjoying the music… or maybe he just loved the roofing business. Anyway, his whistling was infectious, and I started to feel happier about getting my day going.
Then, as I brushed my teeth, the music suddenly blared. And I was privileged to share the joy of a stranger whose face I could not see but whose voice rang out in full volume over the melody playing. One of the crew – maybe it was the guy who’d been whistling – was singing with such abandon and joy… and singing badly at that. I laughed out loud when he held an off-key note at the finale of the song. It was then that I forgave ‘em all for making me leave the comfort of my bed on a lazy Saturday morning. That was the moment joy jumped into my day. I had no idea what the roofer sang, but even though I did not understand his words, I did recognize the language of joy.
