From the Mountain

What I see when I look out

Picture a big Adirondack-style porch with a double hammock swinging in one corner, quiet except for the calls of birds and butterflies (their wings are quiet today). When it rains the stream below the evergreens roars over the round rocks. From the comfort of this old wooden porch the storms that come up over the mountains seem like old friends shouting, "Hey!"

Each evening in the stillness at the edge of dark deer quietly pick their way across the field as they sneak down to the creek.

This porch was once populated by several Adirondack chairs but most of them have succumbed to the harsh winters; one survives. So here are a mixture of "comfort chairs" - one Adirondack, two wooden rockers, one red with a flowery cushion, and several of those old lady metal lawn chairs with scalloped backs and peeling paint. It's a good porch, wrapping around 3 sides of this 103-year-old house.

From here, overlooking this tranquil little world, I feel like I can do anything. You know what I mean? It's a timeless kind of place with no worries, no noise apart from the deafening silence and cries of creatures out in the wilderness.

Ah! My silence now is broken by the clanging of a breakfast bell at some B&B down the mountain. It's a good old-timey sound, though and I'm tempted to answer the call. Sometimes on this porch I get the same kind of feeling I have when I watch "On Golden Pond," a sort of wistful nostalgia. Maybe it's just the state of mind I'm in when I sit here for hours with the sounds of this natural kind of quiet as my only companions. Communion; better than a church with a big fancy roof. It's a good life here at this writer's retreat.

A storm sweeps across the distant peak just now; wonderful light. The locals say this may be the wettest summer ever. The lush green of the mountains seems sweet as August looms; more like Wales, the land of my dreams. When I'm here in the quiet privy to the birds' call-and-response I feel a lot closer to that wonderful land across the sea...and to God.