The View

Every window in this house frames a view. Looking out to the back of the house, the picture is of treetops. Right now only a few leaves remain. When we first moved here in October, the leaves were turning gold and orange and a bit of red. When spring arrives in a few months, there will be thick green with occasional blossoms on mimosas, or Kentucky coffee-bean trees. Only the abundance of chattering squirrels promises to be constant.

These trees are tall and old, rooted in a thirty-foot ravine at the back of our property. Friday morning over coffee at my parents’ apartment, my dad and I pondered just what made that deep crevice. We each expressed surprise that there is no creek way down there at the bottom of the cliff - but Steve, the guy we bought the house from, stopped by on Saturday to retrieve some stray mail and he told us that there are several springs down there. When he was a kid, he would sneak off to play down there.

“Are there snakes?” Dave asked.

“Oh yeah, there are some snakes.”

I watched Dave carefully to see if he exhibited any signs of flight. He only replied, “You won’t catch me down there.”

Friday morning, laptop perched on a TV tray in the den, I faced a window on the front of the house that frames the tops of black bare trees across the street – two 50-year old maples, an old oak, and some crape myrtles. The sunrise sky behind them was striped with muted pink, mauve, lavender and blue. The softball field lights stood out, the only modern element in my morning still-life.

And then on Sunday, I hooked up all my computer and printer cables in my studio in the walk-out basement. My desk sits in front of two windows, much the same as it did at the old house – except the windows are now to my right instead of the left. I do not see the well-cultivated stone-edged garden that I never took for granted. No dogwood tree, holly hedge, yellow rose, daylilies, irises, cannas, purple barberries, coneflowers. No tall pines to screen our back yard from the neighbor’s.

I look out on the patio, the back yard, and the edge of the ravine through the nearest window. My view is limited to the treetops through the second window because of the Fedders cooling machine mounted in the window. That thing comes out very shortly… and it won’t go back in, either.

We brought the birdfeeders to the new house before we moved in. We wanted to “get established” with the local feathers and gain a reputation among their friends as a good place to gather. We’re hosting more chickadees than any other variety, although I do note an occasional yellow finch on the black thistle seed. I’ve seen a cardinal every morning in the brush below the trees, but the larger birds seem to have what they need in the old trees. Or maybe they’re just waiting for a travel report from the chickadees.

Saturday Dad tilled a piece of ground in the far corner of the back yard. “Just a place to put a few things and keep them alive over winter,” I said. “I’ll re-plant them in the spring.” I must get over to the old house to divide perennials and uproot a few small roses. I just don’t know where I want them yet.

“Well, I’ve decided where I want my garden if it’s okay with you,” Dad said. “I’d like to make some raised beds along that bank. I bet there’s some good soil there.”

Dave said he worries that I’ll take up with the studio so much that he’ll not see me too much and that we’ll become estranged in this new arrangement.

“I don’t think so,” I told him. “I think I’ll actually be able to separate work and home a little better.”

We’ll see. I guess it all depends on your view. I know I can’t wait to see the view from my desk come spring.
***

The Tree and Hallowe'en

Seems like every house on Millerwood Drive has a maple tree in the front yard, some more than one. We just have one, but what a spectacular one it is. Last night Dave told me that two or three people have stopped to take pictures of “The Tree.”
I wanted my picture when The Tree was completely full of that gold and orange-to-red but I was about two days late. I couldn’t find the camera – imagine that – and someone on Facebook had to remind me that I have a telephone. Now, the telephone is only a week old and I don’t know how to operate it but I did finally take pictures of The Tree. I imagine that picture will grace our Christmas letter this year.

When I first saw The Tree, I didn’t think about autumn color; I was planning for rope swings with wooden slat bottoms, for Jameson and Carly to beg for pushes until their own legs are long enough, and their muscles big enough, to push off. I imagined a garden between The Tree and the house with a path and comfortable chairs and benches for Mama and Daddy and Grammy and Dave and GrandmaMA and GrandpaPA and all those friends who will pass in and out of this home.

There’s shade there and that will be a difference from most of my gardening on Beech Tree Lane. I will fill in the slope with trailing groundcover, plant soft shrubbery for keeps and white impatiens in the spring. Rocks – there will be flat rocks to walk on and tables to rest a cool drink on. And all that will be “home.”

We only had nine trick-or-treaters and two of those were Jameson and Carly at four pm; they were on their way to their Granny’s house in Lebanon. Jameson was Dracula. His hair was spiked in the middle and he sported the traditional red and black cape, brocade cummerbund, black pants – and hot pink teeth. Carly was Wonder Woman; we tried to think of things that Wonder Woman said on the TV show, but none of us remembered. “Trick or treat,” Carly offered the logical saying for this particular Wonder Woman. My choices of candy were a hit because I had one bag of “Body Parts.” Ewwwwwwwww.

With so few interruptions, Dave and I had time for a grilled steak dinner – and we ate on the dining room table! Woo-hoooooo! Guess you might guess that tremendous progress was made here this week.

“Want a glass of wine?” I offered when Wilma arrived on Friday afternoon. I was in the rocker on the porch for a break, boxes of saved packing material all around me. “I’m just taking a short break. Let’s find you a chair.” We sat and visited – and that is as helpful as the unpacking of boxes. I laid out what I imagined to be our game plan for the afternoon and then took her on “the tour.”

My friend Wilma is a pistol when it comes to work. She launched into the boxes in the piano room and the living room and by dinner (a lovely mushroom sauce chicken, fresh asparagus, and brown rice – isn’t Crock Pot cooking wonderful?), she had filled the music book shelves and emptied every loose box in the front of the house. While she emptied and arranged, I repacked special glassware for safekeeping until that dining room is re-painted.

After dinner, Dave retired to the bedroom to unpack more boxes, so we visited some more. We planned for next undertakings. We talked Beck plan – Wilma is my coach for this new lifestyle change to lose pounds. We talked psychology. We moved furniture in our minds and agreed on uses of space. We let our wine and food wear off. We allowed ourselves to be happy in those moments.
***

If you want a picture of The Tree, you’ll have to come soon. There’s already a golden carpet on the street, the driveway, and half the front yard – It’s a big tree! Just as we are shedding boxes and packing materials and settling into our new home, and just as I am shedding pounds to make a place for new growth in other places in my life, The Tree is shedding what it doesn’t need. It is making room and space for the next season, the next inevitable budding event.

Come next year to see The Tree. And, next Hallowe’en, bring your little goblins to Trick-or-Treat our always changing family compound.
***