HOME {andrew turgeon}
COME home to a roasting leg of lamb on a finished porch. Tiki torches and Adirondack chairs in earth tones. My mother, lounging on the hammock, hookah in hand, she puffs the hashish like a Cheshire cat. Beckoning me to her side, sifts through my issues, telling me to “just chill out already.”
DAD brings out a beer for me, our hops the finest, finished seven months in the basement. Cool draught, honeyed metal brew with an allspice bouquet. Adirondack backs, big-boned chatter, my Dad and I become one another, beer bottle banter.
SISTER placing photographs along the porch walls. Surge of creativity, she takes a snapshot of me, cuts it up, places the sepia tone pieces in a plastic bag and sends the bag up with a blue balloon. Sky fading/sky fading.
FREEDOM at LAST, corn casserole and eggplant Parmesan. I’m weaving that throw rug I was telling you about. The one made of old t-shirts caught in my closet too long. I’ll be weaving as the night winds on. Recessed lighting and my rents playing ping-pong on mahogany floors.
WE MAKE a point to bring the tales of family time to the forefront. The porch a stage set and soon stories of Dad’s incessant farting, the time Mom went crazy 4am Florida trip, our delight to find a duck pond to thank a fish hatchery.
WEAVING, sewing together the structure of our lives on a porch built by my father, painted by my grandfather, hemmed and hawed over by my mother, her way of placing furniture just so…then letting it all go with another puff from her lofty perch.
TOGETHER ON A PORCH, dusk now and the dreams that we may stay like this forever. Limoncello lemonade and pretzel sticks in hand. Sticky scent of hashish and home hover above.
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