The last couple of months have been strange ones, no doubt, as I’m sure you’ll agree. My husband Scott is working from home, John is back from college and Sam’s high school will not be returning for the final month of classes so he is home full time as well. I mostly work from home but sometimes go to work for a change of scenery. I don’t know about y’all, but my personality was not meant to be quarantined or sheltered in any one place. I have missed my friends and family so much. I do enjoy having everyone home though. There is something about having us all together under one roof; I just feel safer, more grounded. I love my little family unit- they complete me and best of all, they tolerate me and even love me, which is not an easy task.
Once a week, I make the drive to my hometown of Aledo, Illinois to check on my dad. During a typical week, when The Rona isn’t running our lives, I drive there regularly to visit family or meet friends for lunch or a beer. But not much of that going around lately. My weekly trip to Aledo is one of the best parts of my week. Seeing my dad and spending time with him, both of us still grieving the loss of my mom, is healing for me. And I love Aledo. Even though I probably will never leave Iowa and I love it here, it’s always hard for me to leave my hometown of Aledo and head back home to Iowa.
There’s a million ways to make that trip back home but my favorite is Route 92 to Route 94. Route 92 is a little rough because the road hasn’t been maintained well and it’s probably not good for the car, but it’s my favorite route, so I tootle along, bouncing around in the driver’s seat, while my fairly new car shakes and rattles. If my husband knew I was taking that road, he would have a cow.
One of the reasons I drive that route is because I like a house that sits on a curve outside of Andalusia. I don’t know what it is about this house- there’s nothing spectacular about it. I sell houses. I’ve seen spectacular. If I had to guess, my attraction to it is purely nostalgia-related. From the outside, it’s a combination of the homes I loved as a child- my grandma’s house, my aunt’s house and our own home, when we lived in the country, not far from where this home is located. It’s a two-story white home with a couple of porches- one on the front of the house, the other on the side, toward the back. It’s the side porch I love the most because it’s large enough for a porch swing.
For me, a porch is one of the best parts of a home. A porch is where you greet the ones you love when you haven’t seen them in a long time. It’s where you sit to watch sunrises or sunsets or wave to the neighbors who are out taking their evening walks with their children and their dogs. It’s the place you stand and watch a storm roll in or run to shelter from rain when you’ve been outside in the garden. It’s the place where you say your goodbyes, sometimes for the last time, without knowing it.
If you’re lucky enough to have a porch large enough for a porch swing, then you are indeed, very fortunate, because a porch swing is the cherry on top. You can sit and rock a baby to sleep on a porch swing, while a soft breeze gently grazes his little eyelids as they grow heavier with tired comfort; meanwhile, you take in the scent of the nearby lilacs, making you drunk with spring. It’s the place you wait for a family member to come home after he’s been away in a war for far too long, while the yellow ribbon you tied around the oak tree in the front yard moves in the breeze and seems to beckon him to come in and lay down the heavy load he’s been carrying for months…or years. It’s the spot where you lay and put your feet up and drift off for a summer nap to the sound of the wind in the pines. It’s the perfect place to watch the leaves turn and fall from the trees and dance across the sidewalks or to watch children run up and down the street in their Halloween costumes, squealing with glee and excitement over pumpkins filled with candy.
A porch and a porch swing might just be what could cure the world of all of its ailments.
Aside from its simple white structure with the two porches, there isn’t much more to mention- it has a couple of screen doors that slam every time someone leaves or comes inside, a red barn or two and a gravel driveway that makes popping sounds under the tires when someone pulls up to the house. It really isn’t any different than many houses you find in the country along quiet, Midwestern, two-lane highways, lined with Queen Anne’s Lace and Black-Eyed Susans. It’s what I imagine when I drive by it that makes it so intoxicating to me and the daydreams usually stay with me until I pull into my own driveway, twenty-five minutes later.
On Sunday mornings, my husband pulls the car out of the barn and up to the side porch for me. I come out in my Sunday-best and climb into the passenger seat and we quietly ride to town to go to church. We don’t say much because we’re both enjoying the scenery and the sunshine. We spend a little time after church, having a cup of coffee and catching up with our friends. If we were Lutheran, we’d spend significantly more time chatting after the service and the coffee would be stronger. But we’re Catholic and Catholics will run you over in the parking lot, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible, so no one really sticks around long. I know this because I’ve been both.
We ride back home and talk about the Mass and the homily and about upcoming events like the Rhubarb Fest in Aledo or the Mercer County Fair. When we arrive back to the house, we’re greeted with the savory scent of the pot roast I put in the oven earlier that morning. I immediately put on my apron and begin to peel the potatoes, while watching out the kitchen window above the sink for my boys and their families to pull into the drive for Sunday dinner. Scott sits in his recliner, reading the paper or watching a baseball game and nodding off. Soon the home will be filled with the sounds of stories and laughter, children playing and music in the background, probably from the record player, since we both like the sound of the crackle the records make. Hours later, saying goodbye will be the hardest part of the day, but you can bet I’ll be on my porch and in grand family tradition, we’ll wave to them until we can’t see their cars anymore. The boys and their families don’t live far and we’ll see John and Sam throughout the week when they have time for a cup of coffee and want to check on us; but goodbyes are always hard, regardless of the time in-between, now that I’ve learned that sometimes they’re final.
During the week, we’ll live our simple, retired life. Scott will don his Pioneer hat and faded jeans that seem to become looser and looser every time he puts them on. He’ll go out to the barn in the morning, after the dew dries, and pull out the John Deere rider to mow the grass. I’ll bake something for when the boys stop by- an apple crisp or maybe just biscuits to eat with butter and homemade strawberry jam. The breeze comes in through the open windows and makes the curtains billow and then snap! before they fall back to the window sill. The smell of freshly turned earth fills the air from the nearby farmers prepping the fields for planting. I occasionally step out to the porch, while drying my hands on my apron, to check on Scott and see how close he is to done so I can greet him with a mason jar full of water. He’ll stand on the porch and drink it, while admiring the clean and straight lines he made with the mower.
We’ll “run to town” together and get groceries and he’ll stop at the hardware store to get a part for my dryer so he can fix it, even though I’m not in a hurry because I can hang the clothes on the line for now. We’ll stop at the Maid-Rite and have a bite and maybe we’ll split a shake. And on the way home, back to our little house in the country, I’ll think about how I’m the luckiest person in the world.
My life in this house is simple. I tend to my flower gardens that are full of lilies that I brought from my mom’s garden, and Scott and I will plant and weed and harvest our own vegetables that I’ll freeze or can in the late summer when the air is heavy and heat is almost unbearable. The nights will be filled with the sounds of soft Big Band music in background, chirping crickets and croaking frogs, and the squeaks of the porch swing, lazily moving back and forth while we sit and talk about what a great life we’ve had.
I have to laugh a little at this fake life I’ve created. It’s so horribly unrealistic. I mean, seriously, what would I do with barns and acreage? What am I, a farmer? Please. I’m scared of spiders. I wouldn’t last a day. If I’m being honest with myself, I’ll probably end up in a condo in town where I pay an HOA fee for someone to mow the grass and clear the walk and I agree to not hang clothing on a line in the backyard. HOA bastards. I won’t “run into town” because I’ll actually already be there. And we won’t eat apple crisp and homemade strawberry jam because all that sugar would give us heartburn. But for that 25 minutes left in my drive, the memories I didn’t make are pretty charming.
I think the message behind my made-up memories is clear though- and here’s what I’ve been realizing over the last couple of months- these little daydreams are telling me that I long for a simpler life and I don’t need much to make me happy. That’s how my mom was- she found joy in people, not things. It’s not really things or places that make the memories, it’s the people we’re with when we make them. Maybe that’s what this “quarantine” has been all about- taking a break and evaluating and prioritizing. Wherever I end up over the course of the next thirty or forty years, I’ll be surrounded by the people that matter most to me- the family and friends that I have missed seeing so much of over the last couple of months. And even if it’s not in some farmhouse between Andalusia and Aledo, it’ll be my own kind of perfect and the memories I created in my head will pale in comparison to the ones that I actually make.