Flying Free

My Front Door

It’s just a simple front door yet for me it is the door to my freedom. After nine months of being afraid to go out that door due to a threatening upstairs tenant I am finally free! I can finally walk out my door without fear of intimidation or reprisals. The tenant moved out on the 4^th of July giving even more meaning to Independence Day for me. In the days that followed I often found myself crying for what I thought was no reason but now realize it was just relief that it was finally over. So it was that on this past Sunday night I found myself yearning for a walk, and while I often walk to the bog which is out the back door and behind my house, tonight I wanted to go for a walk into town.

I took off my flip-flops; laced up my sneakers, and boldly stepped out my front door into the muggy gray summer’s evening. Though it was after 7:30 PM there was still enough light for me to see and to walk. I did not take my binoculars or camera. In all ways I just wanted to be free. At this time of night on a Sunday evening the traffic is relatively light as I walk down the street towards town. I pass a park where children play soccer while family and friends watch. The cement sidewalk beneath my feet is shifted this way and that from frost heaves and tree roots. I must be aware of my feet or I will stumble and fall. I look at the houses around me, admiring the New England Architecture. I try to take it all in and absorb the feeling of this place. A little ways past the soccer field I come to a stone bridge that crosses the Shawsheen River which meanders lazily below. I feel that tranquility permeate my being as I walk on.

Down Main Street I stroll gazing constantly around me. Green trees tower over the street, over the rooftops, framing the sky. I hear the twittering of chimney swifts and look up to see them fluttering through the bits of open sky. Though their flight looks so erratic, it is also swift; thus their name and I feel as if my heart were flying up there with them. For most of the rest of my way home I will hear their cheerful twitters as I walk. Could it be that they are celebrating their freedom as I am?

I turn on Harding Street to High Street and then head home past Sacred Heart Park. The night is advancing now to twilight and I must hurry back. I feel the sweat beading up on me from all the humidity in the air. When I walk past the Soccer Fields of Sacred Heart Park I see a flock of robins searching for worms in the fading light. I am still amazed that I am walking free, that I can come back home to my own front door and open it and step through and be safe. And whenever I want to I can open the door and fly free again.

I intend to take many more walks now. Next time I will bring both bins and camera and record what I see. I feel I can finally get to know this town I live in, and perhaps get back to being myself.