I love these sunny June mornings. With a gentle breeze in the air and a temperature just the right side of balmy everything seems right with the world. The warm early morning sun is on my face; the cool concrete of the patio that cools my feet adds a delicious juxtaposition. I lift my head and turn my face like a satellite dish to receive all the glorious life giving rays my yellow friend can beam down on me. My mind is still and I smile at the world with my eyes.
Mornings like this buoy the spirit, I feel like an old General surveying all I have conquered. If course I’ve conquered nothing, I just happen to live in the house on the hill. The house is not mine, it’s just where I reside. I hesitate to continue along this line for fear that I paint a portrait of myself as an old man, the truth is quite contrary. I know where I stand in the world and have no desire to battle and struggle to find another way of life or to better myself. There is nothing I like better than simply sitting for a moment, with no particular goal; just to absorb LIFE. Too many in this world expend so much of their precious life force straining to achieve, without ever taking the time to sit – with the sun on their face – and revel in the glory of (just for a few minutes) achieving nothing.
Neither do I desire to give the impression I am lazy, it is certainly true I take more moments than others just to sit and listen to my thoughts; but I firmly rebuke accusations of laziness. I have my place in the household I find myself in. I have my routines and bear no malice to my housemates; unless they tamper with my desires. I don’t help with housework, I don’t contribute financially in any way, in fact a casual onlooker could accuse me of doing nothing other than taking food and relaxing. My reply would be that if you can do it and get away with it then why not!
This morning I have wandered a little farther than I normally do during my morning constitutional, I see no harm in expanding ones horizons occasionally, as long as it requires only a little effort. The house on the hill is surrounded on all sides by other houses, all tightly packed in like red brick sardines. As much as I love sitting on my own patio and staring absent mindedly across the large sweeping valley we overlook I fall to the old cliché of believing the grass on the other side of the fence is a little more verdant. So this morning I climbed the fence to find myself here on this sunny patio. I know this isn’t my territory, but these houses are empty during the day and this is less an invasion, more an exploration.
My reverie is broken for a moment by the arrival of an acquaintance, who silently joins me by my side. We hardly know each other but find ourselves comfortable in a swell of mutual ambivalence towards each one another. I consider life too glorious to sully it with needless bickering and fighting.
I glance over at my new companion and she is lost in a broad scan of the valley before us. Perfect. Out the corner of my eye I can see one of the other residents of this house that hosts my harmlessness, equally uninterested in my presence. If only the whole world shared the genial outlook we three are nurturing this fine morning. We have nothing to say to each other, we feel no need to engage in any way, we’re happy just to sit and enjoy the sunshine. We have no goals, we aren’t a committee sweating over increasing our productivity, we just want the same thing; peace. We revel in comfortable mutual ambivalence.
Enjoying the morning breeze with two ladies makes me feel a little like I have a modest harem, and holding that thought I allowed myself to become tangled and lost in a day dream; the details of which (as a gentleman) I shall not share with you!
The wrecking ball that demolished the fantasy I constructed around myself came in the form of the other female living in the house. This beautiful but needlessly malevolent girl gathered pace across the patio as soon as she set eyes on me, and met me with a whirl of claws and a an ungodly (and most uncouth) yowl. For just a second I glanced at my shattered harem and was surprised to see their love was lost, then I scaled the fence and sprinted home, glancing back only to mourn for a moment the passing of a glorious scene.
I think maybe I’ve had enough adventure for now, tomorrow maybe I’ll stay to my own territory. Life is challenge enough; it doesn’t have to be a battle.
Last Updated on February 20, 2023
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