Porch.

The hours that rest between evening and morning seem to be a favorite of mine. Tonight I’m on the porch swing, wishing it were summer and a little warmer. And thinking of other evenings on other porches in Paris and London and Krakow and Florence. Life feels a bit more glamorous when I remember back to those wee hours in cities that are never truly still. Here—it’s very still here. 

I can hear a few lonely cars and the constant hum of machinery from the chemical plant not too far off. A long way from Piazza del Duomo. The peeling porch on my quaint, little green rental doesn’t quite compare to the room atop a London pub. I suppose it’s easy to remember the fun and the fantastic and to forget the insecurities, the tight budgets and the loneliness. I suppose there’s no way around being human wherever we are.

And I suppose it is easy on this porch, in this place, to think only of those difficult things and forget the fun and the fantastic. This theme of self-pity and destruction is becoming old. And soon it has to end. If it doesn’t, I know I will never see France or Italy again. I will never feel alive again if I don’t choose to live in these moments, here and now. I must start, this day, in this moment. And choose to begin. And when I fall, to begin again. And again and again. Until I am happy and proud to be me wherever I am.