Returning to my childhood home, I am reminded of time passing in cracked plaster, peeled paint, green algae-tainted surfaces, and exterior wooden doors softened by moisture.
My grandfather’s screened porches were once replaced with hand-cranked mid-century aluminum-and-glass jalousies before the age of air-conditioning. Over the years, the ever-present humidity due to our temperate climate has caused corrosion and pitted the frame’s gray surface.
Georgia brickwork has shifted. Voided mortar joints have caused tilted walls, cracked concrete stairs, and crooked jalousie headers and footings. Missing cranks and glass slats, along with deteriorated screens, have created inviting spaces for plants and lizards to find their way in. Green frogs, after a rain, sandwich themselves between gaps with their pearlescent toes extended.
Spiderwebs drape their weaving in corners, and in the louver-hinges, flies and wasps get stuck in traps for the spider to enjoy another meal. Closed slats contain crusted, dried bugs that mummify in the corners of hinges or get stuck in tight spaces. I do find some satisfaction in seeing the cockroaches encased in this mid-century mausoleum.
Then there are the common beggartick flowers, which unexpectedly appear on the porch. Their daisy-like blossoms invite themselves inside through vacant spaces and seem to float on thin, leggy stems with broad, notched leaves. Their yellow centers turn into prickly seeds with small barbs that cling to clothes and fur. It brought back a memory of picking them off Keds sneakers and knee-high socks; these travelers, hitchhiking or blowing on the breeze, to be nurtured in the dirt. They grew and spread to fill empty spaces around an ancient camellia bush, clay pots filled with impatiens near the season’s end, and flourished in bare garden spots.
How fitting that these beggartick blossoms moved in to brighten the porch that otherwise would have appeared unattended and abandoned.
Not that I had the energy to pull them out, but if I did, they would return, nurturing themselves with an unstoppable force. I imagined these plants were perhaps descendants of beggarticks loosened from socks, carried across the threshold by dogs or rogue raccoons who came at night to steal trash.
Besides, I happened to enjoy these flowers appearing unexpectedly, cheering up the ever-present aging.
A lizard appeared, tightrope-walking on an aluminum strip across a ledge, quickly unfolding its throat-fan in a pop of translucent orange that was rhythmically stunning.
I never had to step outside to experience a little bit of nature to grace the afternoon, when dainty petals and the lizard’s dewlap caught the sunlight.
I knew the afternoon rains would come when the frog’s forecasted chirps invited the darkened sky to open up and flood the earth, watering the garden of beggarticks.
Have you noticed the beauty of happenstance that changed your mood? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
