I’m sitting on a little loveseat/couch in the corner of my bedroom, a window on either side of the corner. If I were sitting properly on the couch, I would have a window behind me and a window to my right. But, this is not a couch to sit properly on. It’s rather an uncomfortable little couch and no matter how many pillows you arrange, you find yourself shifting around constantly, sure that if you just adjust this a little bit, or straighten that a little more, it will be good. But it never is. So I sit sideways on the couch with my back against the armrest, my legs and feet scrunched on the cushions in front of me as the couch is just a little bit too short to fully stretch out.
The window behind the couch, (which is what I really wanted to tell you about), is an old aluminum frame window, rickety, leaks a lot of air in winter time. The window is in two parts and slides from the right to the left to open. Of course, that doesn’t get you to the outside yet. You then have to grab two hooks, top and bottom, on the storm window and slide it to the left as well. And then finally you are at the screen. This window is special among windows in my room because it still has its screen. Only one other window of the five windows in this room still has its screen. Which means in spring and fall, when we are trying to not run heaters and air conditioners and instead take advantage of the cool air outside, it’s a bit difficult to get that cool air into the bedroom, as there are only two windows with screens. I can’t help but think how nice it will be when all those windows can be opened without an invasion of bugs. It’s one of those awkward situations where it is feasible to fix the screens, except the windows are so old and poorly designed that they all really need to be replaced, and that’s a big project that involves a chunk of money and it’s not a high priority, and so it is at the bottom of the list. So, I have two windows with screens.
Back to the window above the couch. So, this window is covered in vines that arrived this spring. I ask my husband and he says it’s a Virginia Creeper. One half of the window is completely covered, the other side still has a little hole in the middle that has not succumbed. And I sit here on my unwieldy couch and I feel like I am in the jungle. A filter of green for my room. My curtains stay open, no need for them, I have a vine doing the job of creating privacy for me. I can peek through the leaves and see blue sky. The little hole on one side gives me a view of the mulberry tree in the backyard. All I can see is blue and green. What a wonderful little pocket of paradise I have!
One of my more practical minded children makes a comment that we should cut down the vine. I protest. Not now! Wait till fall!
It makes me think about rules. Expectations. A grown up life should look like this. This is what responsibility and prosperity look like. This is how you do it right. And I’m not talking about the unmoveable laws of love that hold up our universe. I’m talking about whether you should paint your house purple, and how neat your flower gardens should look. The rules that say green grass is good, and yellow daisies are not. The rules that say if your life looks like this you are wealthy, and if it doesn’t, you are poor.
According to the world’s rules, I’m not exactly measuring up. But today I sat in my purple faded house, which is definitely on the rundown side, and I worked on music and household chores and I allowed my children to simply exist in their home. They had friends over and they played board games all day, the way only kids on summer vacation can. And I thought about how wealthy I was to be able to be home with my children. My husband was in and out of the house as he had a lot of small jobs and errands to do today. Every time he walked past me throughout the day, passing each other in the kitchen, or the living room, or the bedroom, he gave me a kiss or a hug, or simply a mischievous raise of the eyebrows to make me laugh. How rich I am to have the marriage I have. I squirm a bit on my couch, trying to get a bit more comfortable, and I gaze through my leafy window. How fortunate I am to have such a view. Sometimes I forget.