Playing on the Porch

My landlord lives in the house next door to ours. (In fact, I think we're on the same property, which may be why we've been able to avoid some of the housing stipulations that have recently been plaguing my non-apartment-dwelling BYU ward.) I've always been a little confused about who resides in that house. I've lived here for two years now, and for most of the first year our landlord lived in Springville, and although we have always dropped our rent checks into the next door mailbox, we rarely saw anyone enter or leave the house. Then this past fall there was a flurry of activity and suddenly there were four or five cars in their driveway on most days of the week where before there had only been one (that probably hadn't been driven in years) and there were people entering and exiting at all hours of the day, most of whom I had never seen before. And still we never interacted with them. In fact, I was surprised to learn in April that my roommates, who had all been living in the house since September, had yet to meet or speak to our landlord, on phone or in real life. Since I had interacted with him several times when I moved in the year before, for contracts and repairs and the like, I guess I didn't realize that he virtually disappeared from existence (which disappearance interestingly coincided with his move from Springville to the house next door).

At this point I am relatively certain that there are at least five people in the house next door, and there could very well be more. My landlord lives there, as does his wife, teenage son, grown daughter, and grandaughter. I have also seen his elderly father on occasion, a second son, a second daughter (I know there are more children, I just don't know where they are), and an unidentified older man who may be my landlord's brother, but that's just a guess.

Of all these people, I have only ever really interacted with the grandaughter. She likes to come play on our porch and, as she once informed me, she has every right to because our house technically belongs to her grandpa. I don't blame her for wanting to come play on the porch - if we, as college students, have fun hanging out on the porch I can imagine the appeal it must hold for a six year old who has no inhibitions about draping herself over the railing or jumping down into the flowerbed or climbing all over the steps and fences railings and supports. If I was six, I'd do the same thing.

Now that it's summer, she's been over much more frequently. I will be washing dishes at our kitchen sink, where there is a window overlooking the south side of the porch, and a little blonde head will dash across my vision, and occasionally look in and say hi in a surprised way that indicates that she wasn't really expecting someone to be watching her dance, but that it's okay and I'm not intruding.

It's kind of fun to have her around. Last night when my roommate and I returned home after FHE, she was sitting on the porch trying to untangle the fishing line of the fishing rod she had been casting towards her lawn (the rod had been lying on our porch for days and we had wondered where it came from). She had managed to wrap yards and yards of line around the porch railings and since she seemed to be making things worse in her attempts to undo the mess, I sat down and helped her untangle it.

When she first started hanging out on our porch this summer, I thought I saw glimpses of the trendy, contrary, intimidating pre-teen that she will be in a few years. But after spending a little time with her I realized it was all in the appearance - despite the white-blonde hair and perfectly tanned skin and clothes that manifest more fashion sense than I had at twenty, let alone six, she is still very much a six year old, who would just as soon don a pink princess gown and tiara as a Gap t-shirt and short shorts, and who has every reason to believe that the whole world loves being around her as much as she loves being around them. I think that's why I've taken to swinging my legs on the porch railing while she chatters to me, or following her to the fence behind my house to "visit" the dogs in the neighboring yard, or making conversation with her through the window as I wash the dishes, rather than excusing myself and retreating into the house to do homework or read a book or watch a movie. It's sort of refreshing to be around her, to be around someone who will like me not for anything I do or for the way I try to appear, but just for being there.

She and her mom are moving to Virginia soon. I finally met her mother last night when she came to retrieve her daughter from the porch. Her mother is young - she can't be that much older than me, and maybe she isn't. I had never even seen her until last night, although she had lived in the house for at least a year, and we didn't talk much - just enough for me to tell her that I had lived in Virginia, close to the city where she was moving, that I had liked it there, that it was a fun place to live.

I'll be sad to see them go because it's been far too long since I had children around. I really do miss that.