From the front porch of our rented 1931 home, I look at the brick and stone house across the street that is larger than it seems because it goes way back.
I’m disappointed that the clouds torn apart like cotton candy. The rain stopped after the first appearance of blue sky. Now, there is sudden blue and wet green. The sun has joined in, causing reflections and glistening that is faithful to spring.
Just now! The wind rustles the green leaves (I mourn the white flowers) of the Dogwood tree. Water falls from it as if it is raining again. One limb of the tree never grew leaves, though it doesn’t look deadened or any different from the other limbs.Â
Back to what’s in front of me–the house.
It’s hard to look straight ahead. My eyes are always wandering to the periphery.Â
The colors all around the neighboring house. Blue, white wisps, new green, and the burgundy of the Japanese Maple, make me feel like I’m seeing with a child’s eye again. This could be because we are given saturated and deceivingly simple palettes in childhood.Â
Is it a childlike perspective I am being struck by, though? What first came to mind was the inkling of a base reality, different from what people refer to when they describe a bleak world–opposite, in fact.Â
Maybe the feeling reminds me of childhood because it was more accessible then. I didn’t think about it. I didn’t know how to, couldn’t conceive of such analysis. I was inside of it—the world’s psyche, as I believe Dr. Ric called it.Â
This perception, which is also an inhabitable emotion, feels both dreamlike and tangible, more physical in its unreality, somehow.
It feels like home. Which may be why I struggle to surrender to it.Â
Don’t take me there. Not yet. Bring it to me with worldly opportunities that lift me from boredom.Â
The experience of being alive maybe.