Under the Tulip Tree

February Snow

Just a few inches of snow changes everything. It's not even a drop in the bucket for some people but, here, a few inches means something.

It means that for a little while, the inescapable green settles into the background and it means that something else can take center stage.

And it means that even the telephone wires look pretty.

And that everything is sparkly and everyone is quiet.

I know, I know, I said I didn't want the snow to come. But the kids had been wishing for it all winter and they were beside themselves when it finally came. I couldn't help to be happy, too.

Besides, the green is still there hiding and spring really is just right around the corner…

Though this is quite lovely, too.

ANY

Some Friends

Some friends knew you at a time when many others didn't—that short-lived time after college, before kids, when your marriage was just beginning.

Some friends talk with you so effortlessly that it will be a straight hour before you realize that your waiter has forgotten your food.

Some friends notice the same things you do and will ask you to take a picture for them, too.

Some friends notice what you don't and that will inspire you to take a second look.

Some friends encourage the creative side of you, making you think about what you're doing and what you want to be doing next.

Some friends you just can't put a price on because they are way too special and important for that.

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The Color Returned

For a little while, anyway. The morning sun beamed through the windows and it soaked the counter tops and it breathed new life into everything around it. They say we might be getting snow later this week. Normally I would relish that possibility but not this time. It's too late.

Time's up, winter. Just move along now. Let the color stay for good.

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Winter White and Blackish Green

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You could be gardening in a t-shirt one day and waking up in a frosty dreamland the next.

It's February, you never know what you're gonna get.

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Portland Evening

Meeting Michael downtown for the opening night of the Portland International Film Festival.

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Heading out to dinner, just the two of us.

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Skipping dessert, racing to the theater, almost late for the movie.

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Wanting to stop and take pictures of everything.

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Someone shuffling me along…

Sneaking out the side door after the movie, getting to the opening reception before the hungry crowd and grabbing a booth all to ourselves.

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Going back home, back to reality, tired and glad.

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Up at Sunrise

Scenes like this can sometimes make me rethink the whole I-am-not-a-morning-person thing.

Kinda.

Sometimes.

Not really.

I think I'd rather still be sleeping.

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Our Little Red House

We used to live in a little red house in the middle of a crowded block. Our little house was small and our little yard was tidy. It was perfectly symmetrical with matching paned-glass windows and shutters with anchors carved out of the fronts. It didn't have many plants in its garden. In fact, except for a dogwood tree in the front and a maple tree in the back, it had almost no plants at all. It was a proper little house, made even more proper by the rows of boxwoods and matching window boxes we added to the front. We built a rock wall alongside the sidewalk and we added a cedar fence around the backyard to keep our little bunnies safe. Our little red house was our shelter from life's storms. I loved that house.

Eventually, we said goodbye to our little red house and the dream we once had for it. I remember the day we loaded up the last of our moving boxes. I remember seeing the house as its tidy, symmetrical, proper little self and finally realizing how out of place it was. How out of place we were all along. And that made me feel better about leaving it.

I drove by the old house recently and I was shocked to see how much it had changed. It was still painted red and it still had its cute black shutters but almost everything else was different. The cedar fence was pushed wide open, the boxwoods were gone, the window boxes were missing, and the plants on top of the rock wall had all but disappeared. Instead of the simple symmetry I always thought it needed, the new gardener had used a decidedly more asymmetrical approach. There were plants in places I never thought of putting them—including a vegetable plot in the parkway. I saw the work of someone who wanted to wipe the palette clean of its former self. To wipe it clean of me. But instead of feeling incredulous that two people could look at one plot of land so differently, I saw that our little red house was finally settling in to itself—that it finally looked like it belonged. And I realized that the new owners were surely settling into the neighborhood more than we ever did, and that made me very happy.

I only wish we'd taken some of the old boxwoods with us when we left.

ANY