Missing Home

All of the windows in the house are open, at least the ones that do open. The others are over 80 years-old and have been caulked or painted shut and I could only afford to replace so many at once. I’m sitting on the couch with a pillow behind my back, on my lap with my laptop ironically stationed their while I write.


I’d rather be outside writing, but I couldn’t figure out how to balance all of this on my swing, with my pregnant belly creating my balancing point and my feet stopping short of the porch floor. So the next best thing on the couch, windows open over my head to the right, in-direct light pouring in. I can hear the outside things I like cicadas, birds, crickets, church bells (ringing twelve) and of course the things I could do without car wheels wooshing by on the pavement, dogs in the background growing closer and farther away, my neighbor yelling back in her gravel voice to one of five dogs who’s favorite pastime is barking. With the music off, I can hear my computer fan smothered by the pillow on my lap trying to get enough air. Someone is yelling, a whistle is blowing and still cars woosh by, sometimes with music sliding out their windows, uncaught harmonies as diverse as the people driving. The cicadas have the most to say with their sentences rising in a heavy pitch before falling silent for a second and starting again. Something I just read on the Internet said they are most active in morning before it becomes 80 degrees. Today it’s only supposed to be 73, so does that mean they will chat with me all day? I miss my woods in Meadow Valley. With only three houses past mine, if I hear a car against the gravel, it is occasion to look out the window with the thought “who is on my road?” And even then I was irritated by those folks just driving home.


I want to be a writer, just a writer, noticing what happens around me, writing about it, letting others experience it. I want everything else to go away.