Building 11 “The Back Porch”

The smell of the snowmelt comes in from the window of the old porch we have in back of our house. We virtually never use it, the front porch facing the street and open to the elements while the back porch is enclosed, the mesh that lines the outside of the windows creating a barrier. It feels less free and less open, but there is a smell in here that I was longing for.

So I came.

There is a bunch of old furniture from the previous owner, pieces of old school rot that I am sure had a style back in the day and certainly are still usable, but remain somewhat gaudy and forgotten. The only element of them that I like is the smell, one of aging yarn and cold, flattened foam, tapped down to near flat over generations of asses.

It is a comforting smell, in the same way the museum is comforting.

In the same way the museum used to be comforting.

It lacks the smell of musty mold and wet soil that I attached so long to the museum, but that smell of old, cold wood, of objects stored away for long periods of time waiting to be unearthed remains comforting to me all the same.

It is a smell that reminds me of my grandparents, of family gatherings and lazy days as a child when there was little to do save play with old toys and drink milk.

One time the milk was sour, and my grandparents didn't know.

Yet another thing I would never dream of correcting them about.

There always seemed like there was something to do at their house, even though upon reflection there was so little there that truly interested me. The books they kept were terribly out of date, the sort of encyclopedias that managed to cause me to fail an assignment because the source was too old.

I think it is a bullshit reason to fail someone, especially if the report was full of information that was mostly correct. It is the sort of thing you should maybe drop the grade down to the C, an act of punishment made more terrible in the time before the internet provided a readily updated source of information.

It is something that has lingered in me, that feeling of shame for failing when I tried.

That's all I am saying.

It's a strange thing to hold onto though.

I am sitting here, hoping that the change in scenery will give me a bit more energy to work with. But I know somewhere inside that I am going about this all wrong, that you can't trick your body into feeling rested if it is simply tired.

I am pushing myself too hard, but I can't stop myself.

If I stop then I have to sleep.

If I stop, I prove him right.

When I am falling asleep, when I am sitting in that sort of quagmire between waking and going under, it is then that I think about things I'd rather not think about. It wasn't always this way, and I think it would be fair to say I used to look forward to it.

So long as I am awake, I am in control. So long as I stay busy, all the tiredness and the fatigue and pain are like a dream being shared by someone you don't know too well. It is something you are aware of, but it is slightly boring and certainly not something you put much stock in.

I get like this sometimes, as you may have noticed.

I find a space that likely won't make me feel better, but which calls to me in some way. So long as I seek it out, it feels like I am listening to my needs, even though I am not.

What I need to do is talk to my dad. What I need is to go for a walk or to find a bright place to sit and drink a coffee. What I need is to reach out, like I try to do every week.

But not just reach out to you.

I need to expand out, to find new places and spaces to make myself feel alive.

But not tonight.

There is a smell of oil and mildew in the air, a stagnant, breathless quality to the atmosphere of the back porch. It isn't the place I likely should be, as I've said.

I know what I should be doing.

But there is a call that I followed here.

And I think a few more minutes wouldn't hurt.

The snow has stopped now for now, and I am sitting in that sort of spot where the weather has calmed but the animals have yet to come out. Every once in a while there is the sound of a car driving through a puddle, and the gentle dripping of snowmelt there is before the temperature drops. Other than that, everything is still, and the world feels oddly calm.

Maybe not calm. The world feels cold. Empty even.

And very, very still.

I hope you are well.

I'll talk to you again soon.