Favorite Places

My cat, Anastasia, has a new favorite place—on my lap when I'm sitting on my rocking chair. Not any other time, just on the rocking chair. I have a couple of back issues, so last year I got rid of one super soft chair, which my physical therapist told me I absolutely need to stay away from, and I replaced it with a wooden rocking chair. It's incredibly comfortable, even aside from the back issue. I don't know why I didn't consider it before. So, I sit down to read and Anastasia decides that she needs to be on my lap. She jumps up, fidgets, fusses, and goes in circles and eventually chills. It's cliche and the best.

For my part, aside from loving my new rocking chair, I have discovered what is probably my new favorite place—the front porch. It's been there all 15 years I've lived here, but I rarely use it. I don't know why that is. My partner used to tease me about it for one thing. I don't know why he teased me, and I don't know why I cared. It wasn't malicious, just in good fun. I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that I've come a long way with my attitude and state of mind. The house itself is pier and beam, so the porch is raised. It's a fabulously old house in an old neighborhood and being there makes me indescribably happy. I just had a long weekend, and sitting our there in the cool mornings was about as close to heaven as I've come in a long time. And another of our cats, Clarice, enjoys exploring the area near the porch while I'm out there.

This makes me think of my favorite place in the world to write—the dining room table. It's only a dining room because we have a table in it. The original house basically has four rooms, one of which is the kitchen. They are all more or less the same size and just make a square. Anyway, we have a large dining room table that barely fits in its room, and it just has a good energy. I can write more here than any other place. For one thing there are no doors between the rooms (except for the bathroom, which sticks outside of the main square.) So, I can breathe and it feels so open. I have been trying to create another space for writing—one that feels the same—so that the dining room table can be a place where we actually eat, but I think that secretly this will always be my favorite space. (I'm sitting at the table as I write this.)

One thing that the other space I'm working on is missing is windows. The space is big enough, though not as open as my dining room office. It doesn't have decent windows, though, and I miss that. The windows that are in the building are all about 7 feet off the ground, so you can't gaze out at anything. When I moved into the room that is my bedroom, the first thing I asked for was for more and larger windows. I feel cramped without them. I only recently discovered this about myself, but knowing it I can't ignore it. So, while this is a beautiful old house sitting on two acres of mowed grass with a back yard partitioned off, when it comes to views it's sorely lacking. Or, so it seemed.

Then one day as I sat at my table working I looked around. The dining room has four good-sized windows and the living room next to me has the same. For the fifteen years that I've lived here every single one of these windows, plus those in the bedroom, have had blinds that have been permanently closed. Closed for probably 25 years, and my partner couldn't really explain why. So, I opened six of them, two in front of me and two to each side, and now the space feels even MORE open. I may never leave this table again.

Honestly, the dark bedroom where I sleep (in a building in back of the house so I can have personal space) would actually make an ideal library. Currently we have all of our books in the back room, one that was added on and is the width of the house. That room also has plenty of windows and they face east. The problem is that the light will not be good for my books. I'm torn, because I love seeing the books there, but they'd last better in the darker room. I would definitely visit that room often, but I don't know about Partner. He doesn't read; he just likes to see the bookshelves with books and artwork. Maybe some UV filters on those back windows? Nobody really looks out of them anyway.

I have to say, in these past few weeks I've learned a few things about myself and my life. I've rediscovered my passion for windows, and a minor case of claustrophobia maybe. I've learned that I love this house even more than I thought. You can discover a lot when you slow down, open your eyes and look around.

Rainy Weekend

Words cannot describe how good it feels to sit on my front porch on this rainy Saturday.  Clarice the cat and I have been listening to the mourning dove and other birds. I did a little bit of yardwork before it began to rain. New plants, new planters, new opportunities. I can't wait for the hibiscus to bloom. 

Pottery by Jim Bob Salazar 

Don't tell Barry that Clarice was out here with me. 

She enjoyed exploring new areas. 

Autumn 2017

Autumn is in the air. It was this morning, anyway. This is Central Texas and the temperature is still in the 80's – if not the 90's – during the day. But, we can pretend. I lift my head and try to get a whiff of that technicality in the air, the one that says that the autumnal equinox has already passed and it's time for the leaves to change colors, the temperature to drop and the nights to grow spooky. I can almost taste the nostalgia. It is October.

Being that it is under 100° I felt compelled to be outside today. I love front porches and I live in a house that has one. Oddly, I never use it. (Actually, for reasons I can't comprehend, the front door is nailed shut, which speaks volumes for why I don't use it. But, we're gonna let that go before we start a fight.) So, this afternoon I dragged the two rocking chairs and glass-top patio table to the driveway and swept the wooden floor and tried to get the cobwebs down from the walls and ceiling. There was one wasp nest that I didn't want to disturb, (and I didn't want to get sidetracked by getting rid of it.) I then turned my attention to the much-neglected rocking chairs. 

They are nice chairs – made from wood and painted white. There have been a couple of storms that blew rain and dirt on them, though, so only the residents of this household were aware that they were actually white. To most people they were a dull brown. I had more success cleaning the one that was further away from the northeast side of the porch. The storms that came tended to blow the dirty rain from that side, as wind blew across the dirt driveway/parking area. As I was cleaning I saw a spider and before I could catch myself he had been washed off the chair. What if that was my father trying to visit? Sorry Dad. 

After all that I poured lime-flavored Topo Chico over ice and sat on the newly cleaned chair on the sort-of cleaned porch with only a few mosquitoes and a tiny wasp nest that I hadn't disturbed so I felt comfortable that they weren't angry at me. Tired. I'm probably still anemic; that much activity should not have made me as dizzy as it did. However, let's lose about 30 pounds and see if we don't feel better. I hope I do; I'm running out of possible reasons for the anemia.

As I recovered I sat thinking. I thought about what I would like to do with the shrubs, how to trim them to make the house look better and keep from blocking the view from the porch. It was hot, but a breeze came by every once in a while and felt very nice. I got up to refill my Topo Chico and saw Dad again on the door. This time I just said, "Hi Dad" and kept going. I didn't knock the spider off.

The family across the street was cleaning a building in their back yard. I know this because the woman was "directing" activity the entire time I sat outside. She was yelling almost nonstop about every conceivable thing – related to cleaning or otherwise. Next door to them a Mexican man rode up on his bicycle and leaned it against a tree near the house. After a few minutes another man rode up and they sat together on that porch, chatting quietly. 

This is the small town I live in. This is what I call home. I'm not really used to it. I need to take tips from my friend, Tamara, who is a yoga master at keeping things tidy and de-cluttered. For the most part it's easier to take a nap and forget about it, but I could learn to love being home so much more if I spent a few minutes a day keeping things up. That's a lot of work, though. I need a nap just thinking about it.

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Glass for refreshing beverage next to my ever-present notebook. And pen. On the Front Porch.