Snuggled This Morning

When I woke this morning, wrapped in the folds of my thick blankets, I contemplated rolling back over and remain cocooned in their warm depths or should I rise and face another cold winter’s day. I had things to do and people to see , as the saying goes, but I was reminded of the many times at my grandparent Miner’s house in the late fall or early winter’s sanctuary I found on their front porch.

The cinderblock pillars and walls protected the front entrance to their old, rambling farmhouse. It was an integral part of the farm and because they had eight children, it was necessary. The porch was guarded by two massive short needled pine trees that kept the porch cool in the summer and held frost and snow at bay in the winter. Gram covered her planter boxes with rugs and carpeting to protect them from the frost. Later when the plants had succumbed to the cold, she would roll and store the rugs on a dark green Adirondack settee. This was the spot to which I would escape when the heat, noise, and general hubbub of so many cousins, aunts, and uncles became too much.

I would climb back into my winter coat and slip unobtrusively out the thick wooden front door to the relatively peaceful oasis of the porch. I would listen to the icy winds play songs in the branches and needles of those old pine trees and create a nest in which to burrow.

Lifting the edges of several of the old carpet and rugs, I would slowly make a spot to relax and regain the peace and warmth that I so desired. Wrapping my body and burying my head in the folds, the initial chilliness of the thick rugs would give way to an enveloping, warm dark bastion against the noise inside the house and the cold outside. Soothed by the soft soughing of the icy breeze in the old pines, I would hover between wakefulness and slumber. There were times that I actually napped there. My parents would find and roust me, before heading home.

All thoughts of my warm retreat were chased away as I climbed into my parents’ car to begin the journey to our nearby home. The inside of the car never warmed, because we lived only two miles away.