This month’s IndieWeb Carnival is hosted by Juha-Matti Santala—the theme is love letter. I’m going to write about the one and only, “Outside”.
“Outside what?” You may think. Well really anywhere outside, anywhere but in(side). It’s warming up here in the ol’ northern hemisphere where I live and I like to spend as much of it as I can not indoors. You see professionally I poke at computers, which means I sit quite a bit, and a lot of that sitting tends to be inside (especially in colder months). But with the portability of a laptop, I can do some of said work outside too. Specifically, on my screened-in porch which affords me a lot of the benefits of being outside, without some of the pesky downsides (direct sunlight, annoying bugs, rain, etc…).
When it’s time to take a break, or after-work, or on weekends, I enjoy tending to my garden, mucking about in the yard, going for walks, really anything just to be outside. Growing up in the 90’s, I didn’t have a smart phone or particularly interesting personal computers, so I spent just about all day after school and on the weekends outside. Don’t get me wrong, I had and loved playing videogames (inside), but I was most definitely an outside kid—and still am to this day. I love camping, hiking, boating, outdoor sports, campfires, whatever. Name an outside activity and I’m probably into it.
Here’s what outside is to me, expressed through abstract feelings and fragments of thought:
A brisk morning, a sun low in the sky sends streaks across a meadowed yard…
Spring blooms unfurl, stretching in the warmth of the new day’s rise…
Birds chirp, squirrels scamper. Bees flit to and fro…
Sipping a brew, I try to identify what flies, what frolics, what flowers…
The forecast calls for storms. A cautious breeze heralds the sombering sky…
Canopies dance as the rain begins…
The beat grows louder on the roof, there’s a rumble in the distance…
Skies part, the birds sing once more, night falls…
Fireflies dance, I strike the match…
God, I love a good campfire. If nothing more than to stare into incandescent depths…
A smoldering fire gives way to the chorus nocturnum—a nightly lullaby for me on summer nights.
I wrote this post inside. I think it’s time for me to go.