slowly she turned

I feel so spoiled when I watch what much of the rest of the world is going through. We’re forecast to get some of that high heat this week but in this part of central North Carolina the heat is mainly tolerable. Now, that’s from someone who lives and works in air conditioning, but when I look at places like Boise, Idaho and Portland, Oregon with highs over 100, I realize how much worse it could be.

When we first bought this house, the front yard was a tiny patch of grass with white azaleas and “monkey grass” as yard trim. The heat coming into the house in the afternoon was brutal. We planted two yoshina cherry trees that grew to twice the size they were supposed to (lucky for us, actually) and four crepe myrtle in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. Now it is always shady on our front porch and I hear the people walking through sigh with relief as they leave the sun for our brief oasis.

Anyway, I’ve been enjoying my tolerably warm front porch while I can, with my tapestry loom out here under the ceiling fan and a box fan as needed. In the evenings I can sit out here with a book on my Kindle and early in the evenings I hear music from Oden Brewing’s outdoor stage a block away just on the other side of the railroad.

On the railings on my screened front porch are a display of mostly natural gleaning from various trips I’ve taken, which I occasionally have to clean the cobwebs from. I’m looking at fossils I’ve collected from North Carolina beaches, a barnacle from a North Ireland beach, shells from southern Portugal. A small cobblestone from Lisbon. A piece of broken tile and a purchased amethyst from Queretaro, Mexico. River teeth and driftwood from the shores of Lake Waccamaw. Many, many stones from all over. Worn shells with holes in them, my favorites. A cast iron snail from Trerice, Cornwall, which I thought was a candle lantern but turns out to be a thread ball holder. Anyway, it bears feathers from my walks now. One day I’ll make a flying snail in some format.

The furniture is unpretentious. An old wicker chair and stool that I bought for ten bucks at a yard sale that has a back repaired with jute twine. A weird old plant stand from my grandfather’s house that I rest my coffee on. Two small wicker tables from an antique store at Lake Waccamaw. An old folding “gravity” chair that no longer defies gravity replaced the wicker rocking chair from my mother’s front porch that finally collapsed beyond repair. That was the chair that I bought these matching tables for. I was very sad when I put it out on the curb, and I hope someone more talented at repair than me rescued it.

The cat tree is in the corner where English ivy creeps up outside. There is a string of solar lights that turns on at dusk. A wool tapestry throw rug in on the broken tile floor. A tall table from my neighbor’s yard sale across the street, covered with a box fan, candles, a bowl of shells, a basket of driftwood sticks, and my mother’s struggling Christmas cactus that I’m trying to root babies from before it gives up the ghost. At least I bought this table…I’ve been known to trash pick at his curb, which can be a bit embarrassing when he visits.

I need to take down these Christmas light balls that hang from the traditional “haint” blue ceiling. They stopped working two years ago but last Christmas we weren’t in the mood for decorations anyway. I could wrap new lights around them. Mardi Gras beads hang from the ceiling fan pulls, and the light has needed to be changed for several years, but we dread it because of the pain in the ass factor so we get along with our solar lights and a lamp on the table between the chairs. I keep a field guide to birds beside the lamp. There are old newspapers piled up on the footstool that I’ll take in for Bernie and Frida’s cage lining.

Sounds: we long ago stopped noticing the trains going by at the top of the street. They rarely blow their horns. Loud cars and cycles revving their engines at the other end of the street, especially at night. Yesterday afternoon, somebody rapped a lot of loud foul language as he walked down the street with headphones and a red hoodie on that made me think he was in a superhero costume at first. Occasionally we hear a musician of some kind playing on their own in the little park at the end of our street – it could be blues, it could be classical. Fireworks from the baseball stadium downtown. Cicadas are in full blast. All is not paradise here but right now it feels that way.

Lots of birds: Carolina wrens, song sparrows, American goldfinches, house finches, Carolina chickadees, Northern cardinals, Eastern towhees, gray catbirds, mourning doves, American robins, and an occasional small woodpecker of various species. Yesterday I watched and heard a skirmish between the crows and the red shouldered hawks. Our neighbors are pretty quiet. Yesterday seemed to be lawn mowing day. Now the church bells are letting me know that it is one o’clock and I suppose it is time for lunch, although I’m not hungry.

Time to weave, too. Amazing, but I could have kept on writing just about being on this porch.