Wicker 1

I added to my "Milton Street" Post. I dunno, I think its kind of weird, personally. It is supposed to be the beginning of something I guess. If ANYONE is still reading, please leave a comment. Even if you didn't read this story thingy. Just want to know if there is anyone left after my long leave of absence. :(

The house on Milton Street is pretty. That’s the first word that comes to mind. It isn’t really grand, or charming. Just pretty, in the conventional way. Things never really are anything but silly words, such as pretty, unless you have a story behind them. So when one looks at this house on Milton Street, it takes the breath away from you. But then again, probably only if you have been inside, if you have seen the people who live in this house on Milton Street.

It is snowing, and it gathers on the slanted roof. Gathers like something old. Well, like you might assume snow would gather on your grandfather’s head. Like that. Exactly like that.

But if one can’t imagine what snow would look like as it gathers on the head of their grandfather, who they never met, or never saw in snow, or don’t remember, then one cannot understand this, because these things don’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense to compare snow on a roof to your dead, or never seen, grandfather. Or even to the one you saw last Christmas in Chicago. The roof on the house on Milton Street doesn’t look like a head, with its high roof, and its two pyramids of iced over shingles. It looks like a roof. So one should not ever really be asked to imagine it like a head. But it is that, right there, that makes all the difference. If I told you that the house on Milton Street is pretty, you wouldn’t care. It’s just a house anyways. Just a pretty house on Milton Street. But to the people who live in it, it is something else entirely. And to one who has imagined its slanting roofs, gathering snow as if atop their grandfather’s head, it has new meaning. Not because it changes the way that one views the house (for it seems unlikely that one would suddenly see it in the shape of their grandfathers head), but because the association one would now have with this house would be exclusive and extraordinary. That’s how the world works, and how imagery works - how this works. Things will end up the way they end up, because that’s the way they end up. But the only thing one gets the chance to decide on is how they will feel about how it all unfolds. And that is what makes all the difference.

“It’s funny how rain makes a person cold when outside, but warm when inside. I wonder if it’s because of the contrast, the idea of how cold it is outside makes us feel warmer knowing we aren’t out there. Or maybe it’s just because God decided it would be that way. If you ask me, the latter is a better idea, just because it makes things seem like they have a purpose.”

If you don’t understand something, just assign the credit to God, that’s what I have always been taught, and I like thinking that way, personally. But I don’t think that Millie does, because she crinkles her nose at me and cocks her head, unsmilingly, taking another sip of her tea. I can tell it’s just another one of those things that we are going to disagree on. However, it seems she has decided to let this one slip by in pursuit of another topic, one we have been over what seems like a thousand times.

“Why are we drinking tea?” she says, finally, alleviating my anticipation of when this question would yet again arise. I roll my eyes.

“Because I like tea, and whenever I serve it, you drink it, so I must assume that you can at least bear it.”

Millie doesn’t like this answer. She never does.

“That isn’t a good enough answer,” she groans, sliding down further in her white wicker chair.

I sigh. I don’t think that I ever really have had a good enough answer for most of her questions. Not that anyone really could. The girl questions everything. Her favorite things to ask include “Ashley, why is it you pray at night?” “Ashley, why do you serve tea?” “Ashley, when are you going to start dating?” “Ashley, what is so great about working at a library” and, her all time favorite, “Ashley, why on earth do you have so much wicker furniture?”

“Ashley, why on earth do you have so much wicker furniture?” Millie asks from her new perch upon the arm-rest of one of my favorite chairs. I shoo her off, and don’t answer.