Today is Day number 4. (at least for me it is)

Day #3’s assignment was to get up early and write for two hours.

No tweaking.  Just writng.

Well I did not get up way early, but I did write for two hours.

No tweaking.

When I was finished I did however use the spell checker.

I never could stand those red marks on my paper.

Today.  Day #4.

Writers Practice.  They practice in public.

This is a pretty public place.

So here it is.  Yesterday’s assignment.

Spell checked, other wise untweaked,

Just as it came out of my head.

Hope you enjoy it.

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The Property

They fell in love with it at first sight.

Even passing it by accident along the way that day, they fell in love with it.

Once the realization came that they had passed the address on the paper, they were thrilled to find that the place they were seeking was indeed the place that had caught their eye in passing.

Once in the driveway, it more than caught their eye, it caught their breath away.

The drive had flanked by Blue Spruce trees on each side, gave way to the house which was an old two story farm house.  Currently there was a massive grapevine covering a wooden fence next to the drive.  The ones, who occupied this dwelling at this time, had installed a glorious stained glass window in the upstairs window that faced the drive.

Trees surrounded the enormous yard on three sides.  At the front of the drive was a view that went for miles.  The horizon in the front and in the back, a hill side full of trees.

Once they were in the “way back”, the place where the woods were deeper,  it caught their imagination.

Being fans of Tolkein, the woods became a hideout for elves, a Lothlorien kind of place.  In their minds they could see the elves and their homes in the trees, softly lit at dusk until the morning light.  What magic must happen here when the sun went down?

Once their imaginations were peaked, they noticed the calm.  They noticed the quiet.  The noticed the rustle of the leaves overhead.  So unlike the noises of where they came from.

They could have stayed in this quiet place for the entire day, or in their hearts, for an entire life time.

But alas, reality returned when they realized they still had not seen all there was to see.

Slowly they returned to the drive.  Everything seemed to begin with the drive.  “Down the drive and to the left” you always heard them say in the movies.

Entering into the dwelling through a long breezeway, they noted that this space was unfinished, but seeing the bones of it, knew that this would be no problem for him to take care of. 

Some people knew the guy, he was the guy.

Once again, the breath was drawn out of them when they saw the kitchen.  It was fully double the size of the one that they currently resided with.

In a gasp, they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this place would be their own.  They fell in love with it at first sight.

The walls were covered with antique looking wallpaper on the top, down to a chair rail/shelf made of barn board.  Down to the floor was finished out with barn board. 

In the middle of the room was a very large countertop with sink installed in the top.  This countertop alone was many times larger than the entire counter space in their kitchen in town.

What was this?  On the side of the room, just under the stairway, there was a door made of barn board too.   This door was a Dutch door, open on the top, and latched on the bottom with an iron hook that looked to be turned and twisted on a forger’s anvil.  It very much looked like door to a stall in some farmer’s barn. 

Looking inside, you could see that this space was lined with shelves.  Barn board shelves.  In their imagination they could see it full of produce, grown, canned and stored by their own hand.

Looking past an archway door to the front room; they realized that only the spaces they had seen so far had probably surpassed the total size of their current dwelling.

Upon entering the front room, they both went directly to the window that spanned almost the entire front of the room.  They thought it looked like a frame to the most beautiful picture that they had seen in a while.

The house they had in town, only looked out on streets of white houses, and cars, and telephone wires, and some one else’s kids and dogs and lives.  They instinctively knew that from this vantage point, they could watch the farmer’s farm and the seasons change.   They did not even know yet of the glory of watching a good old mid western storm march across the valley as if it was in formation for some type of military advancement.

Their guide asked, “Wouldn’t you like to see the rest?” 

Oh.  Yes.  Of course.  The rest.  (You mean there’s more?!)

Upon turning a quarter turn, they went to the door and looked out on the old wooden porch.  The roof had been removed, for what purpose they did not know, but their imaginations put a long gliding seat there to read books in the shade or to watch the clouds go by on a “cotton ball cloud” sort of day.

There was a door next to this one.  An odd place for another door.  They had no idea what could be hiding behind it.  Just like in “Let’s Make Deal” when Monty Hall gave them their choice of doors, of course, they chose it.

What a tremendous surprise it was to go through this door and find a bedroom.  Not your average, in town, everybody needs a place sort of bedroom.  No.  This bedroom contained a king size bed, that you had to walk over to.  You had to walk over to it!

The bedroom that their sleeping was done in these days was a “bed room”.  It housed a queen sized bed and a dresser.  You had to – squeeze – to get around the end of the bed.  It was a “Bed.  Room.”

What manner of sleeping could be done in this space, so large and unconfined?

Another door to choose.  Through it, like a rabbit down a rabbit hole, where there was a smallish room with two functions.  Laundry, and, well, hygiene.

There it was.  The washer and dryer, not hidden in a dark and musty basement, but right there in the bathroom, where cleanliness is supposed to take place. 

The colors were awful, but as they say, “the bones were good” so they overlooked what could only be called “Kmart colors.”  You know the ones, the ones that were mixed wrong, that no one wanted so you could get them really cheap colors.  Only the colors in the basement in town were worse.

Back to the kitchen.  Now.  Where were those stairs anyway?  Up they went.

In the room at the top of the stairs, they saw a young man’s bedroom, with a mothers touch.  The furniture was masculine enough, but the accoutrements were all lacy.

Off to the left, another door.  Enter into another young man’s bedroom.  Masculine furniture.  Masculine colors.  No lace.

Back through the lacy bedroom and straight ahead, a different kind of room.  It had a creaky barn board door that was painted blue, and was used for storage and had a long pole for hanging out of season clothing.

They thought about storage only for a second as they realized that the view from the window in there was the same one as from the living room, only it was a bird’s eye view.  They thought it was waste of a good view.

OK.  This was it.  They had seen all the rooms.  Or had they?

Back to the top of the stairs, ready to go down, they saw it.  Another door, unseen upon their arrival.  They entered in and saw a girl’s room.  A lovely large bedroom, that was only slightly smaller than the one below them on the first floor.

Across the room, was the forgotten stain glass window.  How could they have forgotten about something so striking?

Down the stairs they retreated.  Their minds full of imaginations.  Thoughts of what could be.  What they could do with it when it was all theirs.

Then as with all imaginations, the real world comes back all too quickly.

The reasons for leaving their city home were many.

First of all, he was a country sort of guy.

Raised in a southern state with many hills and trees, there was never a shortage of adventures growing up.

When the weather was right, home life was a memory only remembered when his stomach was empty or the sun was going down.

He only stayed on in this northern place because of her.

He knew it the first time he saw her. 

So he stayed.

The adventures here could get a guy in trouble in a hurry.

She was raised in the city. 

She longed for days at her Grampas house in the country.  They couldn’t come often enough.

It was there that she found peace.  Away from the lights and the streets and the cars and the noise, and the white house’s.

She always wondered where she would find someone who would marry someone like her.  Someone trapped in the city with her heart turned toward the country.

She did not know who he was, but when she saw him, she knew him.

So they stayed.

In the city, to raise a family. 

He with his job and his adventures, and her with her strong resolve to raise their daughters well.  Learning from their mistakes, and never really looking past their todays.

That is until one day, their daughters came in to tell her what some kids on bikes had said to them.  What they told her made chills run up and down her spine.  She would have to talk to him about this.  Today.

It was then that they began in earnest find another location. Away from the city.  Away from the noise.  Away from these boys and “Their adventure”.

There was talk about a job in a faraway place.  The money would be good, great in fact, but the hours, they would be horrible.  Six months home, six months away.   Moving her to a faraway place with little girls where they knew no one and then leaving her there for six months at a time.  This would certainly be no way to raise a family.

Another way needed to be determined.  So a plan was hatched.

They would use a compass from one of the girl’s school kits.  They would figure out what thirty miles would look like on a map, and set the compass.  They would place the point of the compass on the place where he made his living and draw a circle for a thirty mile radius.  Thirty miles was not too far to drive to work every day.  Thirty miles.  Thirty minutes.  Definitely doable.  Since they lived on the border of two states, they simply crossed out the state they didn’t want to live in.

This part of the radius would be where they would begin their search.

On the second day of their search, they looked at seven homes.  The realtor had worked hard to set up a schedule of homes for them.  They knew full well that the second one they looked at was the one.

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