Sprung Clean
an ode to home (and to laziness and pre-sepia and old things and to return)
Everything has aged here. It has never been home to children but the orchids are alright (and who will write a song about that then?).
This old house of ours is a warm haven to cool febrile minds and soothe aching hearts; the baggage of worry left at the door, never to be opened while one is indoor. A place of music and of rest; for the cheery and equally the weary, that is quite best. It has played host to many, often indiscriminately till one bunch of jerks to whom it was opened up in good faith came and shat all over it since when discrimination has made its presence felt distinctly. Still, the place remains the same as it always had to everyone who enters: a place of joy and comfort.
I grow old, it grows green. My wife is forever young.
This place has a smell, not putrid nor heady-fragrant, but of a familiar sheltering quilt and of favourite food; of ease and of smiles. Exuberance of youth has sprung clean out of here and in its stead a weathered, mildly musty warmth has settled in. Bright, brash colours have eased into pleasant pre-sepia.
The bold shirt of chaos has smoothed into a well-worn tee of comfort. A life once rocking continues its rhythm on a chair that has lasted generations and will probably outlast the life of this writer. This writer (indolent and indulgent) who has for months only thought of it but has done nothing of it. Writing sits forlorn and part-done in yellow-brown paper on a dusty sideboard in the corner of forgetfulness. Maybe you could put it down to advancing age but mainly he just likes to laze.
Perhaps it is now time to get out the cloth and wipe off that dry, fine-grained patina. It is well past spring here but it’s always open season for a clean. For everyone’s and everything’s final host beckons, lightly nodding to the steady sound ticking down. Oh well! I shall have some more fun with what for me is left and so I will write.
Writing and home. They’re alike for me. I meander, I go off the trail, take a break, get away, and when I return to it, it is the same joy and comfort every time.
The music references remain. The photos are dumb; there’s no intelligence to them of any sort. But they are real and they tell of home.