Around Our House
A morning writing prompt.
I’ve loved writing prompts ever since I read Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones thirty years ago. Writing prompts don’t teach the craft of writing, but they help you practice it. So I started my morning journaling today with this prompt: “Around our house.” Here’s what came out, with some light editing.
Around our house, there is always work to be done. At this time of year, Bob spends hours each day picking up sticks that the spring storms prune from our big old trees. He drives a small trailer up and down the driveway, picking up the sticks under the linden trees, then in the backyard under the old walnut tree and the fairy grove of trees that are bent and stooped but still spell out the word “love.” Birds are picking up sticks, too. We have a wren building a nest in the birdhouse on the front porch, near the porch swing, and every day, a dusting of twigs falls to the porch, ready to be swept off into the bushes.
Around our house, you can hear the life force in the land, the song of the birds, the whispers and sometimes rush of the leaves. One summer afternoon a few years ago I sat on the porch swing and admired the three trunks of the birch tree in our front yard. The symmetry of three, the flutter of filtered light. Ten minutes later, a pop-up thunderstorm roared in and snapped off the top of one of those trunks. Really? The tree looked crippled for a time, but then the canopy of the other limbs grew back in, and now the tree looks balanced once again. Self healing.
Around our house, the only sound in the morning is the hum of the humidifier, a staple from early fall through spring. Mid-morning, Bubble and Mama Cat settle into their places at the ends of the sofa in the living room and watch out the window at the birds and squirrels. And when we let them out later in the day, Mama Cat often delivers one of those small creatures to our door as a gift in exchange for her room and board and partial domestication.
Around our house, we forage for food in our freezer and cupboards, eating when we’re hungry, warming up a soup or casserole and dipping into Bob’s not-so-secret stash of Oreos. I make a breakfast casserole almost every Sunday that sees us through the week. And often when we plan our meals for the coming week, Bob pulls out a list of our go-to main dishes. We’ll scroll down the list until we find one we haven’t fixed for a while. “Lasagna!” we’ll say with delight, as though we’ve discovered a new continent.
Around our house, we have cupboards filled with health supplements, and Bob takes them like my dad did, by the cupful every day. I have shelves filled with books about spirituality and healing, and I read them and listen to them like my mom did, page after page every day. I reach for some of the Bob’s supplements, he practices some of my spirituality. Together, we’ve seen each other through heart and prostate surgery, Covid, Lyme disease, kidney stones, and common aches and pains, and neither of us, thankfully, is on prescription meds.
Around our house, windows let in light from every direction, affording views of Iowa farm fields, the neighbors across the highway, our closest neighbor’s machine building, and the rolling hills behind our house—the landscape Madison County is known for. These windows to the world can sustain me for days, if not weeks. Sometimes I get in the car to drive to the grocery store and realize I haven’t left our property for 10 days.
Around our house, the most amazing family, friends, writing mentees, spiritual students, Story Summit faculty—people we are so blessed to know—are all part of our lives through Zoom, visits, holidays, retreats, and social media. But what’s literally around our house—the day-by-day changes of the landscape, the repeating story of the seasons, the dandelions dotting the yard, the lone red tulip that we’ve never moved from the corner outside our living room, the softness of a cat’s paw, the way the late-day sun lights up the green grass on summer evenings, the sometimes blood-red sunsets, and the starry sky….this is what goes on around our house, and I’m so very, very grateful.
With blessings,
Deb
Want to write with me? I’d love to know what comes from “Around our house….” for you.
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I love being around your house!
This is delightful, Deb. I felt that I was in your world for a moment. Thanks for inviting us in!