Satirical Snapshots Bringing You Art Philosophy On An Easter Monday!
A tale about the little house full of love.
“Lovebug adults are attracted to light-colored surfaces, especially if they are freshly painted, but adults congregate almost anywhere apparently reacting to the effects of sunlight. Lovebugs help the environment when they are in their immature stage as they are attracted to flowers and are good pollinators.”
I only went out of curiosity more than anything. I didn’t go expecting; I never do. Besides, there couldn’t be much in a field stretching out to further than my eye could see. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you what else happened in that part of town or if there even was a town at all. All I recall is a gas station about half a mile before I got there. And the car journey on the way. I remember that because it was beautiful. Speeding through nature, past buffalo ranches and endless foliage. What I remember most of all is driving through a swarm of bugs. They hit the car front like a million bullets. Love bugs they called them. Hundreds and thousands of love bullets banging into the car like they were trying to get inside. They say you should always pay attention to your journey.
I stopped at the gas station which is why I remember it. I got out the car to straighten myself up. I don’t know why but I felt it necessary. I remember hoiking up my jeans and tightening my belt. Palming my summer top to iron out the driving creases and adjusting my hat. Showing the best you have to whatever is about to greet you on the other side. I needn’t have bothered; judgment didn’t reside in that house.
It wasn’t anything special as houses go. You could pass it by without giving it a second glance. Not like some of the building’s I’d frequented in my time that made a point of their grandiosity: Painted in gold with fresco ceilings; mahogany woods and old stone carvings and windows bigger than doors telling timeless stories. Like I said, looking right seemed to be what people paid attention to.
I knocked on the front door but nothing happened. Thing is, it didn’t look like a door you should open and go into. Not that it was foreboding in any way, just a normal door. I suppose that’s why I knocked first. I waited and looked down at the scuffed toes of my boots pondering on how I would introduce myself and at the same time wondering how it was that I could scratch a new pair of boots within seconds of wearing them. When nobody came I turned the handle and pulled the door slowly. Opening a door like that makes you look more like a burglar than not and is likely to have you facing a side by side quicker than anything, yet it’s still how we open something when filled with trepidation. It’s funny how we act as humans. A lot of things we do make no sense.
The hour was early which made me feel like I shouldn’t be going inside yet but a few people were milling around a long table and chatting. I put my friendly smile in place as I approached and fiddled with the cotton tassels that edged my pretty tunic. I should’ve made sure they knew I was coming, I thought. It might pay me to be less impulsive. Turning up unannounced in places all the time without consideration to how others might feel. I always did things like that and thought about them afterward despite always berating myself for doing so. But this time it didn’t matter because I got greeted with friendly hugs and doughnuts for breakfast. Not just any buns but an array of all different kinds from plain to jam filled and those with icing and sprinkles on top. Each cake of a different sweetness but just as yummy. And that sweetness didn’t dissipate but sprinkled itself all through that room and the next. This house that you might well drive past without a notion contained more love inside than I ‘d ever witnessed. Not loaded with the sugar coated pretense we often come across but something more akin to warm honey. The kind that mends you from the inside out.
That’s the best I can explain the feeling. I’ve known love and I’ve lost love like we all have the same. But this kind was different. I considered myself impervious to this sort but somehow it found the cracks where the mortar had fallen out and seeped in. I’ve gotta tell you that this scared me half to death. I find myself wary of anything too good to be true. Surely it would find a way to trip me up or turn sour. Losing something wholesome like that only goes to blacken another piece of your heart and leave you tutting at the world with folded arms. Best to stay protected.
But that honey love, well, it stands alone. It neither forces or betrays. It lets you have a taste and leaves the spoon in front of you should you wish to take some more. It doesn’t run out or turn bad and it has no agenda. I think that’s what unnerves me the most of all: I can’t find a way to prove its unreliability or insincerity because it doesn’t give up on you.
Well, that doesn’t fit my script.
And that makes me laugh inside a little and shake my head. In my experience, all that any one of us is looking for is that warm honeyed love. We try and seek it out in everything we do.
Folks tend to substitute other things to make that feeling come about. They buy themselves trinkets or convince themselves that this next thing will be the answer. Now don’t get me wrong, there ‘aint nothing better than a fine pair of new boots to make me go giddy with excitement but in the end it’s just a passing treat. Like most treat’s they are quickly digested leaving you hungry again. The good stuff isn’t found in the pretty toys or the grand facades, it’s found inside. Like I found inside that house that you wouldn’t likely pay heed to as you passed it by.
I’ve only ever been to that building in that field a few times but I think about it often and what I might’ve missed had I kept on driving. I visit when I can, probably only twice a year because the house I live in is thousands of miles away. But that doesn’t stop the honey coming or being available like I thought it might. It’s still there for my taking and given freely. Given with the purest of hearts connected together stronger than a chain linked fence.
The love still finds a way to reach me from that little house 4,798 miles away faster and more furious than a swarm of a million lovebugs.
Dedicated to the people of Int’l Texas Cowboy Church, Orchard, Texas ~ The little house full of love.
