Looking Ahead
A cruise onto the morning porch reveals a light, soft fog over the pasture, a refreshing chill in the air, and that’s about it. The deer started their retreat back into the deep woods just before daybreak, and I don’t see any birds fluttering around just yet. There’s highway noise, but there’s always highway noise. We live in a little city with one big foot in the countryside. People pass by.
The big crape myrtle is putting on a nice foliage show. I don’t know how many people have noticed, but I do, and I suppose that mostly what counts. I was walking around looking at the front yard yesterday thinking how lovely everything looked in the afternoon sun and how lucky I was to have such a place or rather live in such a place, because you can’t really have nature you just sort of rent it as long as the legal system you devised to divvy things up still works.
Oh, and right before Thanksgiving I brought home two big poinsettias and planted them in the pots flanking the front steps. And they look nice, too. The same pots used to hold spineless cacti. I like the poinsettias better, but I have no idea how long they’ll last. Latter I’ll find an equally soft, colorful replacement for the spring and maybe into the summer. I imagine there might be all manner of shrubby possibilities. It’s nice to be thinking positive thoughts about the future.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale