bones

Every bone in my body hurts and I am young. How much more must the bones, the limbs, of buildings, older than me and weather-worn, ache? I saw an abandoned business yesterday, its facade stripped to the insulation. Dark, dark streaks of mold and rot. Sad. Will my home be like that on the inside someday?

Later, I touched the walls in my home, thanking her for sheltering me so well. How many lovers have loved within her embrace? How many children have stained her walls with sticky fingers? Has anyone died here?

When our house creaks at night, settling into the earth which supports her, she whispers to me: Beloved, rest in me and be well. 

It is well with my soul in this home, in this small place tucked away into an obscure corner of a fly-over state in the middle of these sometimes-great United States. The world is raging and changing and  I can only watch. Who would care what a very average woman from Nebraska thinks? 

But in my haven, I matter.

She needs me to keep her beautiful, to delay the ravages of time and age on her frame. She is no longer young; those days passed long before I was born. Parts of her are sagging and others are faded. A lady never tells her age, and so I don't know how old she truly is, but I'm guessing it's closer to 100 years than it is to 80. But despite the cracking and chipping, there's no denying she's a beauty, unique in every way. We go about our business inside her walls, mindless at times that she'll be here long after we've left. And still she stands, stalwart, on the rolling green hills that have been her home for a century. 

A house is just a house, you say, and perhaps that's true. But this home must love me. I couldn't be so happy in any other place. 

My bones ache for a while and then the pain fades. 

It's not so for her.