A memory

I have a single memory from my grandparents’ previous house.  An afternoon siesta.  My parents are napping, and I, sandwiched between them, listening to the quiet coming from within and without the house.  My parents’ breaths, the glide of the few cars in the street below. 

 

The sounds that come from outside the house sound different according to the season; thick and echoing in the summer, and somewhat sharper at wintertime.  This early memory is seasonless.  Perhaps back then everything was bright and light, like a good feeling at springtime.  At the spring of my life then, I was lying on my back, gazing at the heavy upright shutter-panels of my grandparents’ porch.  Stripes of blue sky peeked between the panels; splashes of clouds whitened the blue here and there.  And the safely of that calmness; safety that came from everything and everyone around me.