These Things I Hold Dear

Response to Invite to Write #3

1. Trees
2. Books
3. The sound of rain hitting a porch roof
4. My mother's smile
5. Wooden porches
6. Hugging my boys
7. Slow kisses
8. Soft blankets and pillows
9. Coffee and long conversation
10. Sunsets (and rises)...hell, the sun in general
11. Music--doowap, jazz, classical, folk
12. Empty journals

It is difficult for me to find the sacred in things, aside from nature, but I have had sacred times, and those share some common elements.

Like porches.

My favorite pictures of people are of them on porches. We are so relaxed, viewing nature from under cover.

Twenty summers ago, I sat on porches in Matlacha with my mom, my Aunt Mary, and their friends. We'd fill lazy hours with coffee and long conversation. Those times were magical, watching the sun rise and set over the water. We filled each other's souls with compassion and comraderie, giving voice to our fears and dreams, and sharing wisdom.

I was in my late teens, fresh from the wounds of becoming a teen mom, watching my college dreams fall off me. I struggled with the pressure of burgeoning adulthood. I was daunted by the weight of learning to be responsible for my own life, and now I was two.

The next twenty years were a flurry of decisions. I married a friend who was also terrified of growing up. Together, we made a life filled with equal measure of laughter and laundry, bills and beer, our weekends filled with football and family. This summer, we divorced, and like the last time my life radically changed, I found myself on a porch.

Reeling from the heartache of betrayal, I found a match. Literally, on match.com. We spend lazy days on his porch, watching the sun rise and set over the water, filling each other's hearts with wit and wisdom, telling of dreams deferred, sharing the contents of our broken hearts, and healing our fragile souls.

This is my favorite part of our relationship. Coffee in the morning to scotch and tea at night, sometimes listening to old country music, most times engaged in the music of the country, the frogs and crickets, the mullet splashing, the rain on the metal roof.

There are so many moments when, cigarette in hand, he brings his arm to his forehead, in the midst of making a point, that he reminds me so much of those magical women, in those magical days. I never dreamed I'd share such sacred time with a man.

It's funny how life speaks in rhyme, if we listen.