Community looks like a knock at the door,
a tall tower-fan-style space heater, chord
wrapped around it. Another knock, a canvas duffle
bag snapped shut left on the porch stuffed
full with coveralls, well worn and three sizes too big,
a work coat lined with fleece, old bailing twine
tied in a tangle in the left pocket, and a warm hat with
down-filled ear flaps on either side. Another knock,
an electric tea kettle - to heat bottled water next time
your pipes freeze, she kindly said.
The door knocks continue, one after another.
Two faces, each with smiling eyes, the only visible part of
their bundled up faces. Their truck still running in my drive, hooked
up to a gooseneck livestock trailer with a large
wood splitter and a quarter cord of wood already split inside.
Where’s this big pile of yours that needs splitting?
They inquired, ready to get to work.
Knock knock. The bed of the neighbor’s side-by-side full of freshly
gathered wood from the forest ten miles up the dirt road.
Many hands making light work as they stacked the logs on my porch
before I could get past the barking dog to door, handle beyond
cold to the touch, screen window lined with ice crystals.
Without a knock the straw bales arrived. Strong, generous
hands unloaded them one by one stacking each square end to end
the exterior perimeter of my delightful yet drafty wood cabin.
In a former life, an earlier version of me felt like
she needed space. Self proclaimed as fiercely
independent, I built my identity on not needing
anyone, anything, any.
But as the snow blows through the seams of the west-facing windows
and a bitter wind drafts under the well worn and cracking wooden
floor boards, I feel warm.
Warmed from the inside out and soon by the outside in
by those I find myself needing, those I hope need me too.
And as my humble house heats up, I realize I have begun to
warm to a new identity, one that is integrally part of a larger whole.