She just has an ease about it.

Never mind that her life–in less than a month– has gone from cozy house-for-two, enviable to every local-goods-only hipster in the metropolitan area to a potentially haunted fixer-upper with a Dairy Queen around the corner.  The holes in the ceiling and the drywall on the floor, the peeling wallpaper and the lack of appliances doesn’t seem to weigh in against the previous owner’s care to plant enough variety of flowers so that something blooms in every season.

Dawn is better able to teeter along the discomfort of the Now-But-Not-Yet better than me– or most people I know.  Wandering around between each falling down room in a wedding dress she wore one year earlier, she is nearly giddy with the destruction.  Tools are already in use, progress is being made.  But the progress is so slow: one tiny nail in one giant rafter in one room of a dozen rooms each day.  And Dawn is just fine.  Thriving, in fact.

While the house gets into shape, Dawn and her husband live their time in a small portion of the house with two active cats and one lazy golden retriever.  It seems like a near-classic movie scenario: newlywed couple, broke down house, close quarters, ghost lady for comic relief.  And the lovely bride taking each set back and frustration with a can-do attitude and a smile.

The delight of Dawn becomes your delight.  Maybe there is something to having nothing together– to have everything completely falling apart around you and not one person there to judge you for it.  What Dawn has figured out is that the falling apart is not forever, so there is time to enjoy it.  No need to get it all together at once, either.  A clean bathroom and a dish-less kitchen sink can be just the peephole one needs to see what is Now… but Not Yet.

  In her bustley, heart topped, lattice-work backed wedding dress, complete and bejeweled, Dawn makes a lovely contrast.  The choice she made in that dress has brought her to this work-of-love-and-art house, and she is serenely enjoying every minute of it.  I believe that makes Dawn a lovely contrast anywhere, wedding dress or not.