Living Large In Our Little House

We all have our morn­ing rit­u­als, and our cov­ered front porch allows me to engage in one of my favorites – sit­ting down with a cup of cof­fee, an actual news­pa­per, and my thoughts.
This is one of my favorite places that we built onto The Little House, as well as to the Belle Writer’s Studio.
We weren’t here when the foun­da­tion went in for The Little House and the first thing we learned about build­ing a house from 300 miles away – don’t try it. The front of The Little House is actu­ally sup­posed to be fac­ing the dri­ve­way, with the party deck fac­ing the lake below.
Instead, the cov­ered front porch is fac­ing the woods and while it is sup­posed to be the front of the house, is the last thing any­one sees when they visit.
Having spent the first morn­ing out on the cov­ered front porch enjoy­ing the view of the canopied yard was done was enough to bring me peace regard­ing its cock-eyed direction.

The roof of the front porch allows me to sit out on it in about any kind of weather. On warm sum­mer morn­ings, I can turn on the over­head fan to cre­ate some breeze. On rainy days, I can sit and lis­ten to the water hit­ting the roof. When I’m done with my paper (which doesn’t take long in a small town), I sit with the remain­der of my cof­fee and inhale the quiet, it’s part of my morn­ing exer­cise that gives me strength to get through the day.
I’m not alone on the front porch; how­ever. I sit too with some of the ghosts of my past. Some 25 feet away is the grave of our very spoiled and very much loved Dacshund, Hershey (pic­tured). I think of all the times we took her on our boat, she was know around Wyandotte County Lake (our local lake in Kansas City), as “the dog with the pink life jacket,” or I remem­ber with a smile that she could wear me and Dale down in lively games of ball that would last for lit­er­ally hours.
Sometimes I think about the table where I am sit­ting, an antique ice cream set – one of my mother’s most prized finds at one of the many auc­tions she and my dad attended on Sundays when I was a kid. That set has been every­where from her back patio at The Bungalow where I grew up to the sun room of the Brick Tudor my par­ents bought when I was a teen, to the din­ing room in my first apart­ment, and finally back to the last place my mom called home, a duplex just a block from our house in Kansas City.
My mother, who knew noth­ing else besides being a wife and mother all of her adult life enjoyed fix­ing din­ners for Dale and I in those last years, so as long as she was able, we bought her gro­ceries and she pre­pared our food – pro­vid­ing her with pur­pose, and giv­ing Dale and I nour­ish­ment while we con­cen­trated on our careers. We sat together many evenings enjoy­ing a meal and good con­ver­sa­tion. If the weather was nice, Mom would always have her back­door open, the sound of her wind chimes adding a sweet ser­e­nade to our meal.
When the breeze blows just right on the cov­ered porch at The Little House, I can some­times still hear her wind chimes play­ing their song, and in it, my mother’s laughter.

On other days, I day­dream that my father is walk­ing down our dri­ve­way, car­ry­ing his rail­road lantern that sits near me on the cov­ered porch. Whistling off tune as he always did and singing to me, “Get up and get going, Suzy Q, the day won’t wait for you.”

On morn­ings when my writ­ing is dom­i­nat­ing my thoughts, I pic­ture my brother, Steve, sit­ting across from me at that table, a smile on his face, a cup of cof­fee of his own in one hand and a cig­a­rette burn­ing in the other.

It was here, on the front porch one week in 2005, where I did the final read­ing and edit­ing of "No Immediate Threat: The story of an American Veteran," the book I wrote about his strug­gles after Vietnam.
As I get up to gather my news­pa­per and cof­fee cup, I can almost hear Steve say­ing, “Take ‘er easy,” his trade­mark send­off.
I smile and as the busi­ness of liv­ing life in the present moves into high gear, the ghosts of my past help bal­ance the peace with another Manic Morning.

What place in you house is your favorite for your morn­ing rit­u­als? Tell us by click­ing on “comments.”