I am satisfied enough with my lot in life. In this particular grey house, I have lived for almost 22 years. I didn’t intend to stay this long. It was ‘temporary’; yet here I am, two children nudged from the nest to find living space elsewhere. One daughter remains.
So for years I’ve had the same views: From the kitchen when I wash dishes, I see the tree. Every house in this complex looks the same, but are alternating either grey, yellow or tan. Each house has a tree in the yard. But that too is changing. Bye bye trees that are so glorious in each of the seasons; most especially winter when the colorful leaves have trickled down and their arms are displayed, cradling squirrels’ fine nests and birds’ smaller nests. There is a plan to get RID of them all. My neighbor’s is gone completely, save for the stump (I’m tempted to write “unless” on it…see Dr. Suess’s Lorax story if you don’t understand) and mine has already been nicked completely in two vertically. It was in the way of the utility pole’s wires. It was in the way. Now my view from the one kitchen window is somber. I know my tree’s bark pattern, its knots, its story. To think it gone… It feels like mourning.
The view from my bedroom consists of a utility pole which shines through the night (I use heavy non-light-penetrating drapes…)
The living room is where I have staring spells. You see, this is a ‘dead-end’ avenue (no pun intended, really) and there is another dead-end street in our backyards on this side of the street, which runs entirely parallel to this one. But you can’t really see the houses of the other street too well because there is a long drainage ditch shrouded by tall trees and those thick vines; between the avenues… On my side of the ditch are tall trees of course and sumac, lots of it. I’ve walked the ditch and found animal dens (holes in the bank), a horseshoe, a discarded air conditioner among other interesting things-and lots of rusted soda and beer cans.
(This is not my sumac bush, just a stock image…..mine has trees behind it, raspberry bushes amongst and in front of it, but you get the idea. Use the imagination.)
I often stand with my nose against the window pane and ‘unthink,’ that is to say I stand there viewing the sumac, so tall, taller every year and the raspberry bushes (I’ve got a jam tower in canning jars in the unused back room!). Every year the raspberry bushes spread out and get closer to the house! They’ve got arms like barbed wire, making it a beautiful but costly endeavor to get too close when you’re trying to run the lawnmower as close as possible. It can’t be done, lest you come away bleeding. So yes, that’s a given. Let them spread! I’d estimate that the bushes, along with the sumac, have inched at least ten feet closer to the house here than when I moved in over twenty years ago. Why, sometimes I think they’ll be right under the living room window.
I am satisfied enough with my lot in life. In this particular grey house, I have lived for almost 22 years. I didn’t intend to stay this long. It was ‘temporary’; yet here I am, two children nudged from the nest to find living space elsewhere. One daughter remains.
Today I was unthinking, with my nose against the pane looking for signs that Autumn was coming and finding beautiful yellow and deep crimson here and there. The same view. For so long. I closed my eyes of course, which I always end up doing. You see I’m a world traveler at heart and so with my eyes closed I went somewhere. This time a beach showed before my closed eyes. I saw lots of sand and active crashing waves, and I was surprised because I am not especially a beach person, save for collecting smoothed beach glass, worn by waves and the waves unabandoned— crashing against rocks. I’ve got a whole lot of that stuff, yeah. I’ve used the smooth glass in mosaic creations and some of it I like to hold and touch.
sea glass:
The window was slid open and so it was that part that my face rested on as I unthought the beach. Perhaps it was the whisper of wind through trees along the ditch that inspired this vision against my closed eyelids. It is good to de-ravel like this. Soon enough I felt as well as sensed the cat Mister Po (my son named him almost a decade ago, when he lived at home) hop up into the window ledge and I opened my eyes. My breath had fogged the window. As per usual, a song (earworm, they say) came into my head: Mister Po Jannnggles!!! Mister Po JANGLES!. But I digress. And hey there, digressing is good for the spirit. For the most part I really am happy with my lot in life.
(Above: Mister Po, after a bath)
Kim, author of Under The Banana Moon http://www.amazon.com/Under-Banana-Moon-Living-Aspergers/dp/1469985144/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
Raven Ambition's Aspergers BLOG 