My Porch, Morning Quiet, Coffee, and a Notebook.
The heat showed up early in New Hampshire this year. The last couple of days haven’t been a gentle warm‑up but a full blast of 95 degrees right before Memorial Day weekend. It caught me off guard. I haven't tested my central air system yet this season. But it was rather nice to sit in the shade and enjoy the warmth, so I dragged my notebooks outside (yes, I do take notes in longhand) onto my covered porch.
All my houseplants are out there now for their summer vacation. I squeezed some pink and purple Impatiens and a few other annuals in between them as well. It's a bit chaotic, but in a good way. Good to be surrounded by lots of color.
Birds are flying back and forth to the houses I've put up, filling them with bits of whatever they can find to make their nests. The rabbits are showing up again, too. They hop around like they own the place as they look for breakfast. I'm not happy that they're eating the young leaves of my Hosta plants, but what can I do? They're so darn cute.
I'm an early riser, but I've been getting up even earlier than usual. 4:00 am. Partly because the heat wakes me up and partly because morning quiet is too good to waste. There's something about the early hours between 4:30 and 7:00 am when everything is still. It gives my brain room to stretch out beyond its natural limits. I bring my coffee and papers outside, sit down and let the day begin to unfold.
Some mornings I write. Some mornings I stare at the trees and think about what I might write later. I don't force it. The porch, fresh air and my coffee encourage a slower pace.
Indoors, I'm all structure and lists with a "let's get this done" attitude. Outside, ideas show up differently. In their own time and their own way. It's funny how that works.
I don't usually plant myself outside this early in the year. (No pun intended.) It's May in northern New England and you still need a sweatshirt and socks to start the day. I'm doing it now because the weather pushed me out here. It's good though. A change of scenery never hurts, especially when you're deep in writing mode and your brain starts to feel like it's running the same loop over and over.
So my porch is open for the season. It's where I'll be doing most of my summer thinking. It's a nice place to sit and let ideas rattle around before I wrangle them into a Word document. And honestly, having the birds and rabbits as my morning coworkers isn’t a bad thing.
With love and gratitude.
