Finding Pennies In The Walls

"The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny?"

Assignment: Strewn throughout the world are little pennies, little things that are in some way beautiful, little things that can be in some way appreciated. Yet, we so often pass over these pennies in the routine of our everyday lives. This assignment is to find a 'penny', anything, and write about it.

There is a landscape surrounding me.

And no, I do not speak of the white winter that wraps us in whizzing wind while we wonder when the sun will show again. I do not speak of the skeleton trees, standing a silent vigil, secretly sleeping at their posts until the leaves begin to bud. I do not speak of the vaunted, valued outside world that has inspired so many to equally many feelings. My landscape is closer, yet harder to see. My landscape is all around me, yet so easy to forget. My landscape is as white as the snow outside, yet no one will feel anything for it.

You perform a thankless job, my dear walls.

You, a marvel of engineering. You, the silent protector of my hearth and home. You who endures the wailing wind, the swirling snow, the cutting cold so that I might be spared the harshness of my environment. So often will I and others write of the beautiful, the incredible outside world. Yet so seldom is everything you do for us appreciated in words.

There is beauty in you too, after all.

A blank expanse of white becomes, upon closer examination, endless miles of bumpy tundra, each bit unique yet uniform. Residing with that tundra are the imperfections of a room well lived in. The small stains and cracks, the chips that speak to those whose lives you also protected, that speak of the human presence that was once here before us. With a good memory, one can even attribute a little crack, a smudge or stain to one's own life within these walls. You have borne our unintended abuse, and yet your marks are the small bits of proof that a person was here. A person lived here. This was a place where people could live... Because of you.

Yes, I know you care not.

You are an anthropomorphic creation of my own imagination. My praises will fall not on deaf ears, but on a lack of ears entirely. Yet I will sing them anyway, following the forlorn hope that there is value in the appreciation of a simple thing. Thank you, my walls. Thank you for everything.