WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:14.199 Us was to be hers. 2 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.399 The porch swing. The porch swing hung from two chains 3 00:00:20.480 --> 00:00:23.440 attached to the beam above the front porch, and it 4 00:00:23.559 --> 00:00:28.719 moved in a slow, gentle arc forward and back, forward 5 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:32.399 and back, as if it were breathing. Veranda sat in 6 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:35.600 it every evening, just after the sun went down and 7 00:00:35.679 --> 00:00:38.799 before the street lights came on, in that soft in 8 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:42.320 between time when the world was neither day nor night, 9 00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:47.119 but something in between, a pause, a hell breath, a 10 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:50.439 moment that did not want to end. She had lived 11 00:00:50.479 --> 00:00:53.960 in this house for twenty three years. The porch swing 12 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:57.600 had been there when she arrived, left by the previous owner, 13 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:01.359 a widower named Harold, who had built it himself from 14 00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:05.120 cedar planks and brass chain links. He had told her 15 00:01:05.599 --> 00:01:09.079 when he handed her the keys, the swing is the 16 00:01:09.120 --> 00:01:12.920 best part of the house. Do not ever take it down. 17 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:17.120 She had laughed, because she thought he was joking. He 18 00:01:17.319 --> 00:01:21.120 was not. The swing was, as he had promised, the 19 00:01:21.120 --> 00:01:25.560 best part of the house. Every evening, the ritual was 20 00:01:25.640 --> 00:01:29.560 the same. She came out the front door with a 21 00:01:29.599 --> 00:01:35.680 glass of iced tea or sometimes lemonade, or sometimes just water, 22 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:40.480 with a slice of cucumber floating in it. She settled 23 00:01:40.480 --> 00:01:44.920 into the swing, arranging herself the way a bird arranges 24 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:50.239 itself in a nest, finding the exact position that felt right, 25 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:54.799 one leg tucked under her, the other resting on the 26 00:01:54.840 --> 00:01:58.760 porch floor, the glass on the wide arm rest where 27 00:01:58.799 --> 00:02:02.599 it could not tip. She pushed off gently with her 28 00:02:02.680 --> 00:02:08.280 foot and began the slow, rhythmic motion that would carry 29 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:13.520 her through the next hour or two, or sometimes three, 30 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:17.560 until the night was deep and the neighborhood was asleep 31 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:21.879 and she was ready to go inside. The first thing 32 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.639 she noticed every evening was the sound the porch swing 33 00:02:26.800 --> 00:02:31.319 made a faint creak when it moved, a soft, metallic 34 00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:35.879 whisper that was almost too quiet to hear. She had 35 00:02:35.879 --> 00:02:39.639 oiled the chains many times, and the creak had diminished 36 00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:43.759 to almost nothing, but she had never tried to eliminate 37 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:48.560 it entirely because she liked it. It was the sound 38 00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:52.400 of the swing doing its work, the sound of rest, 39 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:58.240 the sound of the evening beginning. She associated it with relief, 40 00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:01.439 with the feeling of safe letting down a heavy thing 41 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:06.919 and feeling the weight to leave her shoulders. Think they mean, neighborhood. 42 00:03:08.280 --> 00:03:13.840 It did not arrive all at once. It unfolded slowly, 43 00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:19.240 like a flower opening in time laps. First the children. 44 00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:24.280 They were still outside when she sat down, still running 45 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:30.240 through the yards, still shouting and laughing, their voices bright 46 00:03:30.680 --> 00:03:34.879 and high and full of the wild energy that children 47 00:03:35.039 --> 00:03:39.439 have in the evening, as if the setting sun were fuel, 48 00:03:40.520 --> 00:03:44.319 as if the coming night were a dare. They ran 49 00:03:44.439 --> 00:03:48.800 with sticks and balls and plastic swords. They chased each 50 00:03:48.800 --> 00:03:52.800 other through hedges. They climbed the big oak tree on 51 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:57.520 the corner and sat in its branches like birds, looking 52 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:01.680 down at the street, at the cars, at Veranda on 53 00:04:01.759 --> 00:04:05.759 her porch, swing, at the whole world spread out below 54 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:09.319 them like a map. Then the parents called them in. 55 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:15.159 It started with one voice somewhere, a mother or a father, 56 00:04:16.040 --> 00:04:20.600 calling a name, and then another voice answered, and then another, 57 00:04:21.639 --> 00:04:25.360 and the children began to peel away, one by one, 58 00:04:26.160 --> 00:04:31.279 dropping from the tree, abandoning their games, running toward the 59 00:04:31.319 --> 00:04:36.720 warm light of their homes. The street grew quieter, the 60 00:04:36.759 --> 00:04:42.160 games ended, the toys were gathered up and carried inside. 61 00:04:42.439 --> 00:04:47.720 Doors opened and closed. The neighborhood was putting itself to bed. 62 00:04:48.519 --> 00:04:51.920 Yanda watched all of this from her swing. She did 63 00:04:51.920 --> 00:04:55.040 not know all the children by name, though she knew 64 00:04:55.079 --> 00:04:57.639 some of them, the ones who had lived on the 65 00:04:57.680 --> 00:05:00.399 street long enough to wave at her when they past, 66 00:05:01.079 --> 00:05:04.360 the ones who had asked her once shyly if she 67 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:07.680 had a cat, because everyone assumed that a woman who 68 00:05:07.720 --> 00:05:11.079 sat on a porch swing every evening must have a cat. 69 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.720 She did not have a cat. She had a plant, 70 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:18.439 a fern that sat on the porch railing and grew 71 00:05:18.480 --> 00:05:22.360 in the evenings, or so it seemed, reaching its fronds 72 00:05:22.399 --> 00:05:24.720 toward the light of the porch lamp, as if it 73 00:05:24.720 --> 00:05:28.879 were trying to read something written there. After the children 74 00:05:28.920 --> 00:05:32.759 went inside, the adults appeared. They came out to walk 75 00:05:32.839 --> 00:05:36.680 their dogs, to water their gardens, to stand on their 76 00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:40.519 porches and look at the sky. Some of them waved 77 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:44.839 at Veranda. She waved back. A few of them stopped 78 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:48.680 to talk, not for long, just for a minute, the 79 00:05:48.720 --> 00:05:51.680 way neighbors talk when they have seen each other every 80 00:05:51.759 --> 00:05:55.079 day for years and do not need words to fill 81 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:59.399 the space between them. They talked about the weather, about 82 00:05:59.399 --> 00:06:02.759 the garden, about the new family that had moved into 83 00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:06.000 the house on the corner with the blue door. They 84 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:10.240 talked about nothing in particular, and the nothing was everything, 85 00:06:11.160 --> 00:06:14.920 because it was the texture of their lives. The small 86 00:06:15.160 --> 00:06:19.079 daily fabric that held them together. Then the lights came on. 87 00:06:20.519 --> 00:06:25.839 This was Veranda's favorite part. One by one, the windows 88 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:29.959 and the houses across the street lit up, each one 89 00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:35.160 a different color, a different warmth. The house on the 90 00:06:35.240 --> 00:06:39.839 left had a kitchen light yellow and bright, and through 91 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:42.920 the window she could see the shape of someone cooking, 92 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:47.160 moving back and forth between the stove and the counter, 93 00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:53.319 the small domestic ballet of making dinner. The house next 94 00:06:53.399 --> 00:06:57.279 door had a blue glow a television and the faint, 95 00:06:57.560 --> 00:07:02.079 barely audible sound of a laugh track, a sitcom, something 96 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:06.199 old and familiar that someone was watching for the hundredth time, 97 00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:10.959 because the predictability of it was comforting, because knowing what 98 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:16.439 would happen next was a kind of peace. The house 99 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:20.879 across the street had a reading lamp, a single warm 100 00:07:21.000 --> 00:07:25.199 circle of light in a dark room, and Veranda could 101 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:28.800 see the outline of someone sitting in a chair, a 102 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:33.879 book open on their lap, their head slightly tilted reading. 103 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:38.439 She liked that light the best. It was the light 104 00:07:38.519 --> 00:07:43.560 of solitude, of chosen quiet, of a person who had 105 00:07:43.600 --> 00:07:46.360 decided that this was how the evening would be spent, 106 00:07:47.319 --> 00:07:51.160 in the company of a story, in the gentle company 107 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:56.279 of pages turning. The street grew darker. The street lights 108 00:07:56.360 --> 00:08:01.639 came on, casting their amber pools on the pavee. A 109 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:07.360 car passed slowly, its headlights sweeping across the houses and 110 00:08:07.399 --> 00:08:12.279 then moving on, leaving the street in its usual quiet. 111 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:18.000 A dog barked once, then was still. The crickets had 112 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:23.279 begun their song, a high, continuous hum that rose from 113 00:08:23.319 --> 00:08:27.800 the grass and the hedges and the spaces between the houses, 114 00:08:28.600 --> 00:08:33.279 a sound so constant that it became silence, the way 115 00:08:33.320 --> 00:08:36.080 a river becomes still when you have listened to it 116 00:08:36.200 --> 00:08:41.559 long enough. Veranda sipped her tea. The ice had melted, 117 00:08:42.039 --> 00:08:46.720 the drink was water, now warm and faintly sweet. She 118 00:08:46.879 --> 00:08:51.399 did not mind. The porch swing moved beneath her, forward 119 00:08:51.480 --> 00:08:56.200 and back, forward and back, its gentle arc marking time 120 00:08:56.320 --> 00:08:59.679 in a way that clocks could not, a time measured 121 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:03.759 not in minutes, but in breaths, in SIPs. In the 122 00:09:03.799 --> 00:09:08.120 slow darkening of the sky from blue to purple to black, 123 00:09:08.679 --> 00:09:13.159 she thought about her day not with any particular urgency, 124 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:19.000 not with worry or regret, but with the idle, drifting 125 00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:22.799 attention of someone who knows that the day is over 126 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.840 and cannot be changed, and does not need to be. 127 00:09:26.600 --> 00:09:29.519 She thought about the book she had read, the meal 128 00:09:29.759 --> 00:09:32.759 she had cooked, the phone call she had made to 129 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:36.720 her sister who lived three hours away and talked too 130 00:09:36.840 --> 00:09:40.720 fast and made her laugh. She thought about the small things, 131 00:09:40.960 --> 00:09:43.799 the way the morning light had fallen on the kitchen table, 132 00:09:44.480 --> 00:09:46.679 The way the cat in the yard next door had 133 00:09:46.720 --> 00:09:48.840 sat on the fence and looked at her with its 134 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:52.879 unblinking eyes. The way the air had smelled after the rain, 135 00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:56.679 green and alive and full of the scent of wet earth. 136 00:09:57.279 --> 00:10:00.759 The night deepened, the last lights in and the neighborhood 137 00:10:00.799 --> 00:10:04.320 went out one by one, until only the street light 138 00:10:04.360 --> 00:10:09.360 on the corner remained, burning steadily, keeping watch. Vernada finished 139 00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:12.240 her drink. She set the glass on the arm rest. 140 00:10:12.840 --> 00:10:15.960 She sat for a moment longer, listening to the crickets, 141 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:19.639 feeling the gentle motion of the swing, letting the quiet 142 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:25.600 settle into her bones. Then she stood slowly and folded 143 00:10:25.639 --> 00:10:28.240 the blanket that she kept on the porch chair for 144 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:33.879 cooler nights. She carried it inside. She locked the door. 145 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:38.320 She turned off the porch light, and the swing was 146 00:10:38.399 --> 00:10:42.879 left alone in the dark, hanging still for the first 147 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:50.639 time all evening. Its chains motionless, its seat empty, waiting 148 00:10:50.720 --> 00:10:54.440 for tomorrow, when she would come back with her glass 149 00:10:55.120 --> 00:10:59.120 and her blanket and her quiet, and the swing would 150 00:10:59.120 --> 00:11:06.240 begin again, forward and back, forward and back through the evening, 151 00:11:07.200 --> 00:11:12.000 through the night, through the soft, slow turning of the world.