The walls of my house are closing in. I need to step out.
Dinner is finished, and I am unloading the dishwasher before I can load it. I jerk a cup from the top rack and realize too late it is full, spill water on my feet and across the floor. A daughter walks through it, leaving footprints across the kitchen.
And it is so loud in here. So loud.
I know I am going to lose it if I don’t leave, so I grab a moment and a book and sit on the front porch in the old pealey-paint rocker. I consider walking, but rock.
I sit in the chair my mom and I bought 11 years ago at Fairly Honest Bill’s secondhand store when I was pregnant with Sici. Sanded and covered white, we placed it just so in her nursery. I nursed my first-born girl in that chair, stool at my feet, looking at the curves of her face and around at the colors of her room that looked like life to me — red, apple green and periwinkle. Her colors.
I sit in the old chair now, watching clouds edged pink move across the sky. They make me still.
I read the words “Come to me,” and I remember again: I am not the Source. Like the clouds, I’m moving, but still — resting in this movement of another kind. Come to me means I go, but I am slowed, even stopped.
Moving towards, but still.
Or rocking. I’m rocking and watching the birds.
Swallows dive to eat bugs. Larger birds fly behind houses on their way to roost. I watch one undulate across the sky, and it is a dolphin on water.
Does it ever feel delight at the way it flies? Does it just want to get home?
The lines of power stretch across pre-dusk sky, and I think how the girls use power lines to mark different places.
No power lines overhead, but lots of houses? Must be a newer neighborhood like Auntie’s where the lines are buried underground.
No power lines overhead and mostly pasture and trees? “We are totally in the middle of nowhere,” they say.
Power lines over the houses again? “We’re almost home.”
The sky over this old city house in this old city neighborhood is criss-crossed with thin black lines, and they intersect to frame these pastel clouds, this grey blue sky, these black and brown birds.
This place with its recycling cans rumbling to the curb. With the neighbor talking loudly on the phone about Michelle’s birthday. With this four-year-old girl who knocks on the window and looks toward her mama with longing eyes.
I hear come to me, and I do, tilting back and forth, back and forth, eyes blinking long on this street, under the lines, under the sky.
Today, as I do many Tuesdays, I’m linking up with “Just Write” (an exercise in free writing everyday moments), at The Extraordinary Ordinary.
Also linking to Imperfect Prose on Thursdays at Imperfect Prose, the beautiful blog of Emily Wierenga.
Connecting through the power of stories written, spoken and lived
I love this and boy can I relate the the whole “I gotta get outside or I’m going to scream” thing! Going through a lot of that now myself! :) Thanks for letting me come on your journey.
Thank you for your comment, Mindy! I’m always so glad to know I’m not alone.
Your photos tell the same story as your words…the first, something jarring and unsettled, birds on their way to somewhere else, somewhere to light and rest.
The second photo, peaceful and still. The lines parallel, the birds all equidistant from one another, all facing in the same direction. Such a calm captured here. Photo 3, like the old-fashioned crazy quilt, wrapped about you, old and worn like the old peal-y rocker on which you find your rhythm again. The overhead power lines showing you are nearly home.
Lovely writing Ash. As always, I love your Tuesdays. xo
I love how you make connections between these photos, tell another story within the story. A treat for me. Thank you, Mama.
And I love that crazy quilt metaphor! I thought about being wrapped up in it when I went out onto the porch first thing this morning.
Yesterday evening I had one of those, “I got to get outside moments” myself after a whole day in the house with the kids doing laundry, cleaning, making meals & dealing with fresh produce (Troy had accidently taken my keys to work with him, so we were stuck), I was about to lose it…so we walked up to the park as we waited for Daddy to come home & it was what my soul needed! :)
Love your writing & photos!
So good when we get those glimpses of just what our souls need before we “lose it.” I’ve been in the no-keys boat before. Yikes. Thanks for sharing your experience of finding “fresh air” in the park.
I had a moment yesterday when I was making all 4 kiddos 4 different lunches and they were SO loud, that I thought about next week and when they’d ALL be in school for at least a few hours and how quiet it will be… And then I got sad! But maybe my house will get cleaned every once in a while – ??? We’ll see… Love your writing – so able to relate!
Thanks, Barb. I know what you mean — that hunger for some calm and quiet and yet the appreciation of this raucous, loud and bright time of life, knowing it won’t last forever. I guess it’s good to soak up the quiet when we’ve got it and do our best to embrace the noise when we can. :)
oh girl. this post spoke my language. i am so addicted to color, and you used it in such a vibrant way, here. sharing this. bless you.
Thank you, Emily. I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment. I’m a color addict myself. Bless you back — I’ve been so blessed by your writing!
Oh, I love this Ashley. I felt every moment. Moved by your words today, friend.
Thank you, Alia.
yes, mam. so good, Ashley. the tones of the sky in your photos and tones of this piece seem the same. just the same…
love the imagery of the power lines.
Oh, thank you, Kim. I love your comment about the photo colors and the tones of the piece. That inspires me.