Porch Gazing

Delighted as I am to have a sweet express bus that takes me from work to home, I really love to Metro to the stop nearest to my place, then walk the remaining mile or so. It's a great walk through neighborhoods and parks, and it's so uniquely D.C. It defies easy categorization - it's very much the city, as every part of my route is just blocks from a major commercial road dotted with bodegas and liquor stores. Garbage collects in the gutters, and buses barrel through. But the on my route I pass houses, some in rows of 3 or 6, some linked for entire blocks, and many stand freely. Today there were spring flowers everywhere - daffodils in bright bunches, forsythia exploding along fences, and whatever that bush is that grows more vertically than forsythia, but in branches like forsythia, and has blushing reddish flowers. Gorgeous.

Someday I will have a house, and my house will have a front porch. The ceiling of that porch will be painted some beautiful color. I've loved that bit of unexpected color since college, when I first walked onto my friend Erica's porch and looked up to see a periwinkle "sky." Today I saw a rainbow of porch ceilings- pine green, sky blue, a bright yellow, a lot of brick red. But my favorite was this unbelievable super-saturated rose color. I'd never have picked it, but it made my heart skip a little. Sign of a good color, I'd say. And I bet it looks beautiful in the evening, sun setting and candles lit.