The Illegitimate North Side

Here's something I've always felt but have never put into words, that I've always felt like the north side of our house isn't as good as the south. It looks weird seeing it in print, but it's a feeling that's persisted for decades.

We go in the south side. The pictures we've taken over the years are on the south side. It's sunnier on the south side. The garage is on the south. We get water on the south. All our outhouses have been on the south. The north is more or less forgotten, like uncharted territory, like the dark continent. Anything might happen on the north side. I might be taken captive by natives in the few trees over there. The north is no good.

We have the porch on the north side. Hardly ever used. There's a view on the north side, but everything is distant, except things up close, like the road, the trees. People pass by on the north side, but on the south side they come to visit. The north is wild, the south is home.

I mow the grass on the north side, but I feel like it's less worthy of mowing than the south. There are things to discover on the north side, I believe, but I'm not very interested in discovering them. If I were to see a block of wood on the north side, I'm about 99% sure it would be rotting. Things on the north tend to rot faster than on the south. That's the difference the sun makes. It's moist and buggy on the north. It's dry and domesticated on the south.

I look out the window on the north side, but I'm looking at the view in the distance. My eyes barely see the yard. You could get lost on the north side and no one would see you. I think other people feel the same way but never say anything.

There's some things I could say about the east side too. When I look at the east side from the north, I feel like I can barely reach the south. But when I see the east side from the south, I know I'm home, and there's nothing to see up north. The west side isn't so bad, especially from the south, because you have the sun hitting the west at more auspicious times of the day. But to see the west from the north is, again, to long for the south and to feel morose.