“The Blossoms are Blooming on the Crabapple Tree Outside My House”
The blossoms are blooming on the crabapple tree outside my house. Even in the moonlight, their pink color is soft and delicate. The weather has warmed, and I spend most evenings outside now. I don’t sleep well when I’m sweaty, so I sit outside and write. My pen moves to a soundtrack of crickets, punctuated by the occasional whistle of a passing train. The smell of new green growth fills me with vigor, even at midnight. I know he is inside, softly snoring. He’s curled up hoping I will come wandering into our bed. I want to go curl up next to him, to run my fingers through his brown locks, but something in me just can’t. There’s a tug in my heart that urges me to pen these words. It’s hard not to feel disconnected from the heat of inside when a cool fresh breeze lifts my hair, and the occasional passing of a car feels almost rhythmic. It’s nights like these that I want to take up writing full time. Tonight I want to pen every thought, every feeling, every wild idea. In this quiet calm I dream that maybe one day I will see my writing published.
When you’re unemployed there’s a siren’s call to stay inside and fall head over heels into whatever hobby it is you’re in love with at that moment. Right now I resist that song, sweet on the breeze like the scent of the apple tree next door. Right now though, under moonlit pinks and greens, I find it just so hard to want the working life. The back and forth, the long hours, the slog through the mundane just to arrive home with barely enough energy to accomplish anything you wanted to do when you woke this morning.
When my thoughts turn to sour anxiety, the breeze begins to feel more chill, and the sounds of cars become distracting. The warm orange glow of my home calls me, and the thought of my place next to the person curled in my bed feels like the only place I could ever want to be. That’s when the writing stops, when I stand from my seat in the stars, and I turn to the warmth of home. There is a finality to closing my writing book, to shutting my laptop. It feels like closing a chapter, ending what was a seemingly endless pouring out of my soul. Suddenly I have shut it all back up, because the love of my life is warm and waiting.
Midnight Thoughts from my Patio 05/17
