A truly calming space

Sitting here with a panoramic view of the lake in front of me, the wooden deck to my left with a set of outdoor furniture on it, an old BBQ grill stands resolutely in the corner, lonely in the winter. It is a nice place to relax, through the sliding door and the screen, to feel the sun and the fresh breeze. On sunny days, people sail on the lake. The damp wood underneath me after the recent rain, feels refreshing to my feet. Some nights we turn on the outdoor heat lamps and just sit and talk.

In front of me, fifty feet pine trees stand, the branches swaying in the high winds; to the right is my hard tennis court that we play on occasionally. I can see my sailboat still docked on our small beach, with the lake water lapping up to its side. Piles of dead branches enforced our fence that keeps the Canadian geese away. I can hear them in the fall and spring going awk awk awk…

Out here in the suburbs, I hear the sounds of nature daily, birds chirping, pine trees rustling, and the thump as a bee preparing for winter crashes into an invisible barrier, trying to get inside to help those tomato plants it sees.

I work here all the time, my classroom away from school. It was always somewhat cold in this place, unless it was summer and the AC broke. It was built as a 3-season sunroom, so no insulation in the floor exists. I would curl up into a ball with my sweater to warm up my freezing feet. This dining room was a much smaller room than the one in our previous house. Though I cannot remember it well, I know that our old dining room was formal; we only used it when we had a lot of guests over. The table wasn’t cluttered up with papers and books like where I am now. It is filled with papers and books; we have to move all them whenever we want to eat.

My mom and I usually sit in this room, both of our computers whirring. The tap of the keys and the click of the mouse are heard here all day long. I feel sometimes lonely, with a computer as my companion, but there will be my dad, who watches CNN as a first time voter in the next room, and my mom, who is always nearby, ready to help me, whenever necessary. So in reality, there is no space to contemplate my isolation.

I don’t know how my mom can survive being this close to me. She toils along with me, doing her work on her computer and her digitizer, something that is almost always with her, unless if she is reading or sleeping. Since I switched to homeschooling; it seems more arduous for my mom to keep managing me. She stays up until I fall asleep, and some of my habits annoy her to no end. There is no physical education class at home, so I spend all my energy, “bouncing around the house,” that is why my mom signed me up for karate and tennis. Although she can leave me at home it seems to stress her out even more. She’s always worried that I will be hurt and although she is really annoyed with me, she cares about me. She is a true mom.

On the weekends, it really gets lonely here on the dining room. My dad is probably playing chess downstairs, or doing some work outside, otherwise he would take me biking. My mom, with my sister at her harp lesson, is away from the house. After I finish all my school work, I usually play on my Wii or watch TV. This room is totally deserted. A truly calming space, to get work done…