Empire Building

I finally bought a broom and swept off the back porch. I found some patio chairs at Wal-Mart and a folding table. The rosebush I bought myself on Mothers’ Day has taken a week of care to recover from 10 days of abandonment while we were in Hawaii. The kid and I are going shopping today for a wind-chime and a glass lawn globe he saw in a Sky Mall magazine.

I realized the reason it’s been so hard to live in this place is because it’s so damn unlivable. We talked of empire building, creating for ourselves what we never had, a home, a family. But because we were so unfamiliar with it, we didn’t know what it looked like beyond our mind’s eye. We built the walls and put ourselves inside where no one could reach us or hurt us.

We forgot to put out a chair and a vase.