This is my view when I’m sitting on our back deck:
This is what I usually see when I turn around.
I think about how long it took us to get to this point. Of course, I’m mostly referring to our massive reno. The planning of this particular part of the house was a mini-headache in itself, but that is all water under the bridge. Now, it is truly an oasis, even though it sounds cheesy to phrase it that way.
Sometimes I eat my breakfast out here, or share a glass of wine with Mark, but at the moment I’m sitting with a coffee at my elbow. Every once in awhile I zone out, stare into nothing. I take a deep breath, and then another, and return to my thoughts.
I look up into our maple tree. It was just a little thing when we moved here but it’s become a Tree Of Substance that gives us two storeys worth of shelter. The wind blows, shimmering through the leaves. It speaks in a long rustling whisper. A robin calls, and another bird I can’t identify sends a trill from our neighbour’s yard. These are messages being relayed, and I haven’t been invited to understand them.
The only distraction is the occasional hum of a car on the other side of the hedge and the footfall of passersby, but I can tune them out for the most part.
Piper curls up next to me and everything.is.good.
We sit amid sun-bleached couch cushions, wrapped in the fragrance of a bouquet of peonies I’ve placed into a jug that was given to us by a good friend. The smell of peonies is one of my happy smells, much like campfire, and charcoal grills, fresh bread, and freshly mown grass.
The peonies always remind me: what things will I miss most at the end of my life, and what can I do to fit more of those things into the time that I have? In a way it makes me glad I filled the vase with so many peonies. They’re almost all finished flowering and I won’t see them again for a whole year.
