Porches and Porch Swings

 

So many of the world’s problems could be solved if everyone had a front porch swing. Has anybody ever had an argument in a porch swing?

In its original state, my porch was smaller, with fancy railings. 

Later on, it was enlarged and screened in.  When I was a teenager, the screens were removed and it had a new concrete floor poured.  The swing has been there since before I can remember.  When I was a child, both swing and ceiling were painted “haint blue” in Southern tradition. Someday I’m going to repaint it that color.  The fancy railings are still around, stored in one of the outbuildings for years. Sometimes I toy with the idea of replacing them.

My grandmother is the first person I clearly remember sitting in this swing.  My great grandmother Shouse died when I was ten and spent the last year or two in a nursing home, so my memories of her are not as clear.   My great grandmother Colley had her own home in town and her own porch swing, and I remember sitting on the floor of that porch playing, while she and her daughters laughed and talked as they played bridge.  My mother spent a lot of time in that swing.  She always preferred to be outdoors.  We broke beans, shucked corn, shelled peas and watched my young cousins play in the yard.  The children she kept learned to love that porch and that swing, helped break beans and shell peas there, and some of them bring their own children to sit in the “magic swing.”

I still break beans, shuck corn and shell peas in the swing, and many of my stories are written there, taking shape in my head before becoming words in black and white.  Friends who come to visit often don’t make it any further than the porch – it issues an invitation to sit a spell, talk, laugh, and listen. One of my young friends told me the other day that even if she ever has her own house with her own porch, she doesn’t think it would ever be as peaceful as my porch.  That’s a high compliment.

On sunny mornings in the spring, I like to sit on the porch first thing.  It sets the tone for them day. Sometimes I catch the golden hour of morning, just before sunrise. Birds flood the air with their music and honeysuckle scents the breeze. 

My great-great grandfather built this house and planted four maple trees in the yard.  Three are gone, victims of age and vicious storms over the years.  Only one still casts its shadows over the grass and shades the picnic table.  It has lost a few limbs, but it is hanging on.  I hope it outlasts me.  Losing the trees broke my heart and my mom and dad never got over it.

Sometimes I think my favorite times in the swing are on rainy afternoons in the summer, especially after a dry smell.  I can smell the garden soaking up the water as distant thunder mumbles and complains.  Afterwards, the frogs sing and the birds return to their interrupted anthems.  The dogs lie sleeping, content to ignore the rain and storms, except Scout, who is the only dog I’ve ever had who loves to sit out in the rain.  I guess when you wear a Collie fur coat, you don’t notice the wet so much.

But then there are crisp fall afternoons, when the trees put on their party dresses and the leaves dance to the music of wild geese honking their way south.  Distant harvest sounds -combines and hay balers - reassure me that the crops are being gathered.  The dogs, glad of cooler weather, dash through the leaves and the birdsong is more subdued. 

Nights on the porch are special, too.

Nights alive with the call of the katydid, the croak of bullfrogs, the night birds chorus and the distant call of the owls; and moonless night so quiet the stars hold their breath.  Quiet nights can be peaceful and friendly, or they can be still and unsettled, haunted by strange spirits.  On those nights, the dogs draw a little closer and stay alert, perhaps catching my uneasy feelings.  Or do they sense more than I do and go into protective mode on their own? 

Winter is not always as pleasant on the porch, but around here we have spells of warms days here and there when I can put on a coat and spend some time in the swing, dreaming of spring and the arrival of the flowers.  The birds are busy at the feeders and bare trees paint a stark picture against the pewter sky.  Scout welcomes those days – he thinks everyone should be as comfortable in the cold as he is and doesn’t understand my preference for my seat in front of the fireplace.

I’m sure I would get more work done if I didn’t have that porch and that old swing.  But it’s a place to recharge and reconnect to my sense of self and home.  Problems seem to shrink there and worry is swept away by the breeze from the porch swing. Everybody needs a porch with a swing on it.

 

 

Acorns, Musicians and Ice Cream for Breakfast

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 I was eating breakfast at Homestead one Saturday morning a while back and noticed a young girl, probably around 12, getting an ice cream cone from the soft serve machine that is part of the buffet.  I confess that my first thought was not, why is that child eating ice cream for breakfast, but why is she eating ice cream on a cold day like this.  I say that because I myself have been known to eat pie for breakfast – especially strawberry pie during strawberry season.  It is fruit after all.  Ice cream is milk and it’s not unusual to have milk for breakfast.  If it hadn’t been so cold that day, I might have had a cone myself.

I suspect that kids who eat ice cream for breakfast grow up to be people who don’t let anyone tell them they can’t do what they want to do or accomplish what they want to accomplish.  They are the kids that develop a passion and pursue that passion, kids who decide it’s more fun to be interesting than to be pretty, or handsome, or to go along with the crowd.  If no one squashes them, they will grow up to be leaders, artists, inventors, or innovators.  Her parents didn’t seem to be surprised or disapproving of ice cream for breakfast, so I would assume that they are not the kind of parents who will squash those traits in their children.

On a slightly warmer day not long after that, my cousin Alice and I met for our usual lunch at Fish Camp.  When I got out of my truck, I noticed that she was examining the ground beside her van.  “Come here and look at all these acorns,” she called. Alice and I have a long friendship and probably share more experiences that anyone else I know, all the way back to spending golden hours catching minnows in the branch, riding horses all over the neighborhood and exploring every square foot of our adjoining farms.  We still meet for lunch most days through the week, and people around here have come to expect unusual things to happen when we are around. 

 So, it would not have been an odd sight to anyone who saw us behind the restaurant last week, studying acorns and taking pictures of them.  Alice’s son Tommy was passing by with a load of hay and pulled in to ask what we were doing.  He did not seem surprised when we explained that we were examining acorns.  After almost three decades of observing us, probably nothing surprises him.

It has always been amazing to me that a huge oak tree grows from such a tiny source, or indeed that any tree grows from such a small beginning.  The area where Alice noticed these acorns was at the foot of a very steep wooded bluff and the area was absolutely carpeted in acorns.  There was nothing so unusual about them, except a lot of them were split open and when I picked up one of those, I noticed that it had sprouted.  There was about an inch long sprout that could have produced an oak tree.  Unfortunately, it had fallen on the edge of the pavement and the sprout had already turned brown and was beginning to shrivel. 

People can shrivel too.  We all sprout and grow, given enough sunshine and nurturing.  The lucky ones have people around them to encourage, to let them live their passions, like the little girl eating ice cream for breakfast.  I had been pondering these things for a few weeks, feeling the nudge I get sometimes when I need to write about something. Then, this past weekend, I attended a local concert and saw a young friend performing for the first time in several months.  Sidney is a young musician from a small town nearby and I have watched him play his guitar and sing now for a while, tracking the results of his focus and hard work and enjoying his progress as an artist. When I find a young man who plays Tom Petty, Dylan and Bob Seger, I have to sit up and take notice!  He has left his hometown and moved to Nashville, in pursuit of his passion, and I’ve followed his social media as he plays around Nashville and beyond.  Before one of his songs, he had this to say. “When you find your purpose, you have to take a leap of faith to follow your passion.”  Somewhere along the way, someone has given Sidney the confidence and freedom that he can spread his wings and fly.  His talent has sprouted and found a place where it can put down deep roots and grow.    I commend his family and friends who have helped cultivate his talent and his belief in himself.

I bought one of Sidney’s CDs after the show and made sure his signature was on it.  I told him I wanted to be sure to have it so when he became famous, I could show people that I knew him “back when.”  He gave me a big hug and a bigger smile.  I hope I have played a tiny part in his belief in his dreams.

I wish now that I had taken that little sprouted acorn home with me and planted and watered it.  It may have been too far gone, but I will always wonder if it would have revived enough to produce a baby tree.  I also wish I had told that family at Homestead how great it was that their daughter was eating ice cream that morning.  I hope she always eats ice cream for breakfast.

The Paschal Moon

 

Winter is trying to have the last word today.  The last two days brought an icy wind, seeming determined to hold back spring.  Today the wind is whipping the daffodils, sending the wind chimes on the porch into a frenzy and howling through the chimney in my bedroom.  I think I dreamed last night I was in a Bronte novel – listening to the wuthering wind across the moors.  It was the full moon, the Worm moon of March, or the Paschal moon of this year, the moon that determines the date for Easter. I went out late to fasten the dogs in the yard and stood for a few minutes watching the thin clouds scurry across the face of that moon.  I heard wild geese in the distance and an owl hooting in the woods. I suppose this is redbud winter, the first in a list of what we in the country call “cold spells” that appear before summer’s domination.  No matter what winter says, spring is marching forward.

I was in those woods earlier in the day, climbing down the steep hillside to visit my enchanted wildflower spot.  The bluebells were putting on a show, their pink buds and blue blossoms nodding at the sun.  The trout lilies were making their best attempt to outshine them, their graceful yellow faces reaching for the light, and the rue anemone carpeted their space like a sprinkle of snow.  The trout lilies are the prettiest this year that I have seen in several years; something about the weather this winter and into spring must have given them an extra boost. 

A scatter of yellow violets peek out of the leaves, the trillium are open and a few Dutchman’s britches still remain.  The shooting star has four clusters of buds this year.  I am tempted to put a fence around it to protect it from damage, but that would probably offend Mother Nature, who likes to care for her charges in her own way.    Still to come are the columbine’s gold, the purple of the larkspur and the endearing shoots of the Jack in the pulpit.  The mystery foliage of what looks like some kind of lily are up a few inches.  I don’t know what it is and I have never been able to catch it in bloom to find out.  There is one lonely plant, just above the rest of the flowers and I don’t know where it came from.  Maybe this year the puzzle will be solved.

I sat on my rock and watched the branch trickle along just down the hill, listening to birds sing and squirrels chatter.  This is the beginning of Holy Week, when our hearts break again at the memory of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, then pause for a moment on Saturday before the glorious celebration of sunrise on Easter Sunday.  There is no better reminder of Easter than a garden in spring, when buds that appear to the eye to be lifeless and finished get an unseen signal from deep at their roots and begin to swell.   Soon enough, those nondescript buds will unfold into leaves that give summer shade and then autumn’s fierce colors before they fall to replenish the soil and begin the cycle again.  And isn’t that a perfect reminder of Easter’s promise?