North Chatt Porch Life
Cars are sailing past on Barton Avenue, though it's too early for rush hour. It seems it's rush hour nearly all the time on this road, except for late at night or early Sunday mornings. I miss the stillness of the St. Elmo porch, and the solid curve of Lookout Mountain, but I've come to like things about this North Chattanooga porch. The sun streams onto the corner of its western edge, onto the wilting rust-colored mums and pale orange and sage pumpkin I bought at the pumpkin patch near Signal Mountain. That was another obscenely gorgeous fall day--the sunlight sparkling in the morning, blinding at midday, fading to mellow perfection by late afternoon. The cats are at the height of their powers, stalking in the ivy in the crisp dusk and basking in the late afternoon sunlight. Rey twists and writhes at my feet, her spotted grey belly sunkissed and warm, vibrating with purrs.
The house is coming together inside, too. Julian has begun to hang art on the walls we painted grey, and plans for a bookshelf and rug in the dining room are taking shape. I think we'll make it a cozy home for a few years yet. It'll be grand one day to move into a place we own, and plant flowers in our own lawn, and pay a mortgage instead of flinging rent money into the void. But fling we must for a few years yet, and strike that strange balance between loving a place and making it a home, yet not caring to invest too much sweat and tears into it, because impermanence clings to it like the ivy winding its way stealthily around the white bricks of this porch. I love the ivy, and am trying to train it to take the house over completely.
I've been so busy I haven't been cooking much, but I want to change that, and carve out enough time once or twice a week to make a Chinese dish that will make me homesick for Beijing, or some cozy fall dish like chicken pot pie or cassoulet, or the Moroccan tagine I've been scheming to make for ages.
I've been drinking well. The Louis/Dressner wines we've been getting in at Imbibe are lovely. In particular I've been crushing on a juicy, funky Gamay/Pinot blend from Herve Villemade in Cheverny. It reminds me of drinking at La Buvette in Paris with Katie and Q. It's the same sort of honest, no-frills, chuggable juice. I'm just missing the pickled eggs and creamy, gooey nectar-of-cheese we had --was it St. Angel? I'm also missing the cafe tables and tiled floor, and sauccisson prints. I miss Paris all the time. I look up plane tickets every week, just to check in, and study French a couple times a week. I plan on signing up for classes with the Chattanooga School of Language in the spring of next year. Next will be to figure out some way I can work in Paris doing what I love (writing, wine, wine writing???) and traveling to every French wine region that exists. Or who knows? Maybe Tennessee is to be my home base, and I'll take yearly trips to France. Maybe Julian and I will move to the west coast, or to China as we've idly discussed lately. (China? Again? It seems almost crazy, but I think it would be so fun to explore it with Jules, and it would be different this time. I'm more self-possessed, and I would go after what I want instead of losing myself to partying, feeling stuck and aimless and alone.)
Just now I'm grateful to be here on my Tennessee porch in the slanting sun, with ivy kissing my shoulder and mums and pumpkins on the stoop beside me, with my love coming home to me and friends coming over for wine later.
