Jumpin' Ja-Hosephat

When I was younger, my mother and I mostly bonded over television. There were phases; The Golden Girls/Nanny phase, the game show phase, the talk show phase, and the reality television phase.

The reality phase consisted of house flipping shows, makeover shows, and those corny shows that I occasionally still watch for kicks- Bridezillas, Hoarders, Addicted(ironic), and Wife Swap.

One of my biggest life lessons came from Wife Swap. The premise of the show, for those unfamiliar, is to take two wives and mothers from vastly different family units for a week. The first few days, they did things the way the regular wife would, and for the remainder of the time they could instate their own rules.  The swapped mother would have $1,000 to give to their temporary family, and got to dictate where it went specifically.

On the episode in question, an uptight woman was traded out to a family of Rastafarians. The husband didn't have any real job, other than playing in his reggae band, and they lived in a community of other Rastafarians that were the same level of laid-back and carefree. She obviously did not take this well. Her husband for the week kept telling her "Ja will provide."

That sort of reliance on the god of your choosing requires a lot of faith, and I remember thinking that it would backfire spectacularly. But lo and behold, every time someone needed food or money, it was there. When someone in the community came into any sort of excess bounty, they spread that wealth among their neighbors. Local non-Rastafarians would swing by the settlement when they needed some temporary labor and hire people as needed, and everyone worked hard and shared what they made out of that. It was fascinating. Ja did, in fact, provide(even if it had more to do with the community ideals of taking care of each other than any sort of reggae-themed deity).

Surprising, the things that stick with us. "Ja will provide" turned into a mantra of mine, called forth in times of distress. And it's been true. When I needed money, extra work would come my way. If I needed food, someone would offer to buy me lunch. Which is not to say that I relied on providence to take care of me; I've always hustled when I needed to. But when I was in a need greater than what I could handle, the universe has always made something work out. Maybe it's because I'm open to it, or because I take the opportunities presented. Who knows?

We've found a new apartment. It's in a building with some great people, owned by someone that works at the college. He's great. The place is great. But... It's a little more expensive than our current place. Still within our range, but with my hours being inconsistent and those two weeks of my unpaid vacation after Christmas, it's a horrible time to move and I was concerned(I've already gotten most of my Christmas shopping done, so no crunch-time shopping). And I took a deep breath and repeated my mantra: Ja will provide.

I ran into my future landlord today at our monthly staff breakfast. We talked a bit about the apartment and he, expecting his second child on Thursday(or thereabouts), expressed that he hadn't gotten the professional cleaning crew in the apartment yet. Which seemed like the perfect time to mention that I had been, at many points past, a professional cleaner. That led to both an offer to deduct a chunk out of our first rent payment for the cleaning of the apartment, and a small job cleaning the stairwell once a month for another monthly rent deduction. So now, the thing I was most worried about is not exactly "taken care of", but looks promising.

The universe is a mystifying place, full of waves of sorrow and pools of joy(as The Beatles liked to say), and we just have to be open to it. Life is better that way.