Our front porch is surrounded on three sides with the original fixed screens and operable in-swing windows. It used to have a two-person wood swing on one end suspended from a nailing joist above the wainscot ceiling. It came with the house and hung there for years after we moved in. Once in a while we swung in it as a family when our daughter was a toddler, or while we looked through the mail, but I remember it most clearly when I swung our daughter in it. The more she got used to it, the higher I pushed. Sometimes she looked concerned, but her smile grew too, so I didn’t stop. The light filtered through the arborvitae and the large red twig dogwood on the west side, and vines on the south side. The light interacted with the color of the grey green painted ceiling and gable, then filled the room with hazy green air.
Our long-legged tabby cat usually appeared when there was action on the porch. He’d leap up and sit on the low cabinet close by and watch us. He mostly studied our daughters’ movements. She studied him too and sometimes she draped him in scarves and beads, and made a perfect floral head wrap like he was royalty. He was often the star of her videos and photographs. He’d sit patiently until she finished her story because he trusted her and she often ended with a kiss to his head. Close to the windows the branches of the dogwood created a strong shifting pattern, a loose grid of red and brown branches that swayed gently on windy days. Our cat always saw any movement first and looked for the small birds that visited and congregated inside the bush. Our daughter noticed him look, so she looked up from what she was doing and searched for birds too. Maybe it imprinted on her how animals seek comfort and what the variety of green can be. She might have thought that this is what her life would always be like.
Sometimes when I relaxed on the swing and looked through the dogwood, the boulevard trees came into focus. People and their dogs passing by were visible too. Inside, the fall light shifted from green to gold and crimson because the dogwood leaves were changing. Then winter eliminated most of them while the remaining ones hung on until spring when the rest finally dropped. Once summer returned and things were growing, the porch turned warm and green again. If any windows were open, sometimes the smell of cut grass, lilies, and lilac drifted in.
“What Do You Dream About?” “Home.” The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
Songs :: Everyday Life and O (Hidden Track) by Coldplay, Déjà Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Something Fine by Jackson Browne, and Took A Walk by Shaboozey
© C. Davidson
