It's my last Sunday on this favorite porch. As much as I talk about not making this world my home, I still like a good home now and then and this place as been that. This little house on the corner of Market and Grove with the revolving door and perhaps revolving hearts (who said the female is not a fickle creature?). We have laughed and loved and cried and opened and closed and learned and grown here and that I will miss. I've nearly always had the best when it comes to roommates though and I'm unconcerned about the next living situation (Who could be, with a girl like this as your roommate?).

But I will miss this porch. Season tells me that a porch is a must-have on our home in Texas and who I am to argue with a born and bred Texan, even one so sweet and gentle as she? This porch, the one we saw as Christina and I rounded the corner last fall and glanced at each other and said "this is it. we're home." This is the porch I'll miss. We strung a hammock on it, swayed ourselves to sleep and peace. We put a table on it and learned about loving Jesus more than things. We lined the edges with plants with names and wildflowers that only last a week, no matter though, there are more where those came from.

On this porch we have celebrated birthdays and filmed movies and journaled and sit-a-spelled. We are not adverse to strangers showing up on this porch at all hours of the day and night and so they do. Some become friends.

When we moved here, we dreamed of calling our home The Common Room and somehow it has become so. Differently than we planned and probably with more angst and work and sushi dinners than we'd thought it would take, but it's become it. Someone tells me the other day that he will miss my consolation. I ask for clarification and he says, your peace. But I know, secretly, it's not my peace, it's the Holy Spirit and what he can do when we share things in common on purpose.

So I will miss this porch, not because I will miss its peeling paint and sloping floors or spider webs constantly forming in the corners. I will miss it perhaps for its pillars and sides, perfect for sitting on and leaning against; perhaps I will miss it for its stairs facing the sunset every night; perhaps for the morning glory that is slowly making its way up the railing. I'm not sure. There are characteristics of things we miss everywhere, every scent a nostalgic memory and every color a nudging reminder. But I am learning to leave things as they are.

Instead I'm grateful for the front porches in my life, the places that provide spaces for us to learn and grow and be and sway in hammocks and make friends with strangers who become friends.