The Front Porch

queen flo

Our front porch is really pretty and inviting.  We have two wicker benches and one chair all with comfortable cushions. There’s a couple of tables and in the summer I put a few of our house plants on them.  There’s bamboo blinds for shade and privacy from Route 22, which runs in front of the house.

But Jon and I rarely sit there.   Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, I’ll take my book and some tea out there and snuggle in for a few hours of reading.  Sometimes I’ll bring my computer and blog from the front porch.

As the back porch has become the domain of Minnie and the hens, the front porch is Flo’s.

Almost anytime of day you’ll find Flo sleeping on the front porch.  I feed her there in the morning and in the afternoon.  It’s her own little palace and she occupies the space with all the attitude and sense of entitlement that cats possess.

I’ve never seen Minnie on the front porch, (although Flo does use the back porch, Minnie is more generous I think) or the hens.  When I do sit on one of those wicker benches to read, Flo always comes and curls up next to me.

Sometimes, when the moon is full,  and I get up to go to the bathroom in the night,  I can see the front porch glowing blue through the window.  It’s hard for me to resist that kind of moonlight.  It pulls at me.  “Come, it says, “sit in my cool fire for a moment”.

I’ll sit on the wicker bench, staring at the moon high over the hills across the road.  Flo is often there winding herself around my legs.  If not, I know she’s out hunting, maybe she can’t resist the moon either.

I didn’t know I could be immersed in light.  Just as on a hot day, when I swim in the river, the water holds me and cools me.  I feel like the moonlight is including me in something I’ve always been a part of but have forgotten.

There’s no cars on the road that time of night and between the strange light, the quiet and the stillness, it feels like I’ve stepped into another time.  A time when humans were closer to the earth.  When the rhythms of nature had a greater influence on us.  When nature was as important and close to us as the people we lived with.  When nature was our family.

Was that really ever true?  I don’t know, but that’s what it feel like to me, sitting on the front porch in the moonlight, with Flo doing figure-eights  around my legs.

10 thoughts on “The Front Porch

  1. I loved this blog Maria. I recall my treks as a younger child with my Aunt Helen into the deep woods behind my Grandfathers farm in Ft. Dodge, IA. I loved it there and my Aunt would point out the Jack in the Pulpit, buttercups, and other wild flowers you rarely hear of today. Then she would let me splash around in the clear water of what she called The Lizard River But very shallow where she took me …I also would play in the Spring Run which was always dull of tadpoles and frogs. Pestisides have killed off most of our frogs & toads…It makes my heart sad.

    1. What a beautiful memory Julia. How lucky you are to have such an experience. Makes me smile reading it as sad as it is how things for the small and large creatures in nature are being destroyed.

  2. Flo looks so comfortable in this picture…. And you, Maria, are a great inspiration for women.. Whether you want to be or not… :-). Love all your pictures, stories, and your art….. Rebecca

  3. “cool fire” of the moon. What a beautiful and evocative image. You really do have a gift for written expression as well as the world beyond words of your art, written in line, composition, texture and color. I am happy you share both with us.

  4. What a lovely post. I have a yellow kitty named Oscar who also has a favorite white wicker chair on our front porch. It is a gathering place for several of our neighborhood cats. They like to dine al fresco out there.

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