30 sep 2012

i cannot make it happen. i cannot make it stay. but when it comes, i can feel it.

glance out the window during twilight, through gloaming-blue trees, across shared backyards, into the neighbor's window where lamps are burning warm. the barest of blue skylight drains from the betweenspace.

and then i think of you.

now that i am grown, i wonder, what could you have been thinking? taking a married couple and their four kids into your home. i look back on those years... it was your house and of course you were there, but i barely remember your presence. you had your life and although it can't have been easy, you didn't put it all on hold for us. that's to be admired. i do remember nearly every day, you - sitting alone in the kitchen, newspaper flared, marmalade jar and plate of toast in attendance, cup of coffee at the ready. it was imminently clear you damn sure were not giving up your breakfast routine.

you were determined to hold yourself above our chaos, not in a panicked way like we might pull you in, but in a why-would-i way, like it never entered your mind. in the face of our breathless vortex of flailing need, you remained a bastion of peace, a well of joy, a warm stoic.

and when i chance to glace a neighbor's welcoming lamp shining golden warmth across the backyard as the cool blue gloaming drains, i think of you.