Morning after

My exhausted body awakens slowly, rejuvenated from a crazy busy week and an even crazier wild night in the neighborhood.

I look out a window and then another, basking in the beauty and quietude of our peaceful neighborhood.  The streets are empty now - except for the leftover chalk art to cheer and remind me.  The huge empty lot next door seems almost empty again other than a cluster of folding tables and another cluster of the amazingly efficient cardboard garbage bins. I breathe in the peace and quiet.  

But then voices... somewhere outside… getting louder.  

Talking.

Now singing?

Where is that coming from?

And where did they find a microphone?

It’s not even 7:30 in the morning.

Checking yet another window I discover one lonely vendor tent still standing in the empty lot turned marketplace.  So that answers one of the where questions.

...

PorchFest happened.

We survived.

What an amazing event.

So many people..

Food trucks and vendors and musicians

So much color and noise.

Oh, the noise!

A band setting up early in the day... testing the volume of their system.

And then another.

Bands on porches behind, beside, and across from.

(Thanks to Robert Sims for photos.)

We had reserved our porch to be a little gathering spot this year.  A writers’s nook with newly-released books for sale and signing by several local writers.  A hang-out for friends and a respite for strangers.

We almost imagined it could be a quiet little island in the sea of noise - well, except for the times when bands were performing directly across…. How silly of us.

What we had not calculated was that there might be a generator running just a few feet from our book displays.  Plugged in and running 40 minutes before start time, it never paused until 40 minutes after closing time. Six solid hours of loud generator noise.  Our little conversation circle now required raising our voices to hear each other - to the point of raspiness.

We slowly begin sorting through the piles and starting to put things away.

Back-to-back renditions of “Jolene” are booming now from next door.

More singing along… through somebody’s karaoke microphone maybe.

More sorting and cleaning up.

Remembering the festivities.

The beautiful moments.

The connections with people.

So many good people.

Old friends and new.

And the conversations… so good… even while struggling to hear each other.

And that one favorite chalk artist.

Keep putting stuff away.

Keep processing.

Start picking up the trash outside.

But wait; what do I hear?

Is that silence?  

Could it be?

Let me look.

Sure enough, the tent is gone. The radio is silent and the truck doors are closing. The smoker is hitched up and pulling away.

It is only 10:30 a.m.

Ah, yes, peace and quiet.

Sunshine and blue skies.

I love my neighborhood.