Rain clouds roll in like the tumbleweeds in the old west. This is Washington after all. It's not surprising, just disappointing. The clouds make half-hearted threats. A drizzle is all they can muster. Not very sinister weather, but quiet. The clouds throw a blanket of gray over the backyard.
A silent pall falls over the house with no neighbors, a gravel driveway, and a make-shift bamboo forest. A sad place, maybe. Broken, like many of the dreams in this town; like many of the people here.
Small but sprawling. Few people, but many miles. Miles between them physically, but emotionally too. I wish I could say there was a glimmer of hope, some small ray of light out there. But those rolling tumbleweed clouds have blocked out the sun.
On summer days like these, the evenings last longer than other places. They stretch forever like the one lane roads in this town. But the evenings here are dark and knowing; omniscient clouds watching the lost wanderings of the citizens here.
A car rolls into the driveway of this gray-blue house. The red trim fading to brown, but still managing to be quaint. Quaintness abounds in this place.
The car doors open, and like some sort of warped-reality-infused clown car, three people, two milk crates, two purses, one back pack, two shoulder bags, one laundry basket, and many, many boxes tumbled out in a wave of mix-matched belongings. Two young women and a mom, cramped but swollen with a sense of accomplishment, stumble and stretch in the driveway, gravel crunching under their shoes.
Home for one young woman, the other a stranger to this place. Her scuffed chuck taylor's shift uncomfortably as she looks around. The clouds shift as well, watching this new person stepping into this old place.
There are secrets here. They live in the walls of this gray-blue house. They lurk in the shadows. They peek from the corners, wary of this intruder. If they had voices they would murmur "You don't belong here". If they were boisterous they would shriek "Get out!". It's a good thing secrets are never boisterous. They must be contented to watch, like the clouds overhead that creep over the rooftop, whisper past the chimney and rustle through the bamboo.
For the one who's home this is, it is a bittersweet day. The bitterness overcomes her as the tension between mother and daughter mounts. Then passes. To be home is both a comfort and a risk for the young woman. The secrets held in the walls of this house are also held in her heart, and cannot be aired out in front of a guest. It would mar the quaintness this visitor is subjected to.
The two women are bonded by their similarities but enriched by their differences. They are still learning and yet still hesitant to learn. That's why they have decided to spend a week in each person's home town. To lean an ear to each other's walls and listen to their secrets. The secrets that have no voices, but speak so loudly.
The house is quiet. Cool inside, but not cold. The carpet quiets the sound of feet marching up and down stairs, carrying in the scattered belongings from the car. The muffled sounds only last a little while and then quiet inhabits the house again.
The young women are not quiet, and thus do not belong here. They have voices and ideas and passion. All things this town lost many years ago. College kids, they are brimming with potential and here potential had the risk of being squandered. It was unsafe for young minds, like these women's, to stay in this place for long, lest they and their ideas get stuck here forever only to fade and be forgotten.
The women see some of their peers stuck like gnats in flypaper. And some who, like them, are only here as long as they have to be. This place is limbo; a stepping stone on the path to success. It is not a way station for lost souls for them, unlike others here. They see the horizon and they move towards it, not away.
Rain clouds roll by like the tumbleweeds in the old west. And before long, the two women roll away with them.
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