The smell of home

A letter to someone in the future

Dear you,

I'm glad you chose this house as your home,

where the sun casts her first rays above the city roof tops

and the moon paints a silver path across the lake.

You must have moved in by now,

and felt the morningness peel the night off the dazed waves.

I wonder if you ate pizza on the bare kitchen floor

the day you got the keys.

Will you eat your breakfast in the kitchen,

overlooking the flower beds and the linden avenue?

Or in the living room,

absorbing the moods of the lake?

I wonder if you one second

hear the sound of cushioned feet

pattering across the moonlit hallway

and in under your covers for a midnight story,

and the next wonder

if that was the last morning you woke up

next to stolen pillows and tinkerbell giggles.

I wonder if your children will crack the code

to reading in this house.

Will they learn to swim in the lake?

Will they find the drawers in the attic,

filled with Playmobil figures from the 1990s

that the first owners left behind?

I wonder how you celebrate birthdays here.

Will you sneak outside in the morning

on bare feet

and pick dew beaded flowers with blushing buds

and stick them into a chipped vase?

I wonder if you find the best kitchen tile to stand on

when your feet are cold.

I wonder what footprints we leave.

“The ants come every March equinox”,

a neighbour told us when we moved in.

And they did,

give or take a few days.

Don't worry when you see them

marching down the living room floor,

they will leave once the temperature rises.

Perhaps it already has.

Do you love the oak by the southern gable?

Do you step on acorn hats in September

simply to hear them crackle?

Do you ask the trunk

to hold your clothesline

on days windy enough

to blow oak leaves into the hallway

when you go inside for more clothes pins?

The tree must have grown many new rings

since I last saw it.

I wonder what they can tell us

about how we treated it.

Will you find lonely clothes pins among the fern?

Will you plant a garden around the house,

harvest tomatoes warmed by the August sun?

Will the smell of linden blossom

meander to your open window

and sprinkle poetry on your sheets?

Will you forage for elderberry flowers

and make lemonade in June?

Will you watch the foliage fade

lace curtain by lace curtain

until the branches are bare come November?

Will you love the silence of the snow?

I wonder if this house will be filled

with love and generosity,

if you greet each other in the morning

with a smile and a kiss,

If you paint each other’s laugh lines with giggles

as the years go by.

I wonder if you get up early in the morning

to soak in the brand new air

before others have already used it

or if you will rather burn the midnight oil

and find your sparkle after dark.

I wonder if you will ever understand

how the upstairs shower works.

Will you one day watch your children

walk down the avenue with a spring in their steps

towards eating their own pizza on their own kitchen floor?

Will you then wonder

if you have let them make their own mistakes,

If you have prepared them enough for the world?

Or nurtured the world for them?

Will you feel safe here?

Will your heart sing to the pace of your breathing

as you roll up the avenue on your bike

after a long day at work?

I wonder if the world

my generation has borrowed from you

is a kind and generous one,

if you have fresh air to breathe.

I was once a soul in this house.

I am a whisper in these walls.

If you notice a smell of wool in the corners,

think of me.

I wish you love and joy here.

I hope you one day open the front door

and know the smell of home.

With all my love

Josefin

P.S. Have you found a pair of kitchen scissors?