Thursday, July 30, 2015

Back Porch Dawn



This morning I got up even earlier than usual, feeling my way through the first hints of dawn light to the back porch. Usually it is chilly out there in the morning, as it is on the north side, but in the present heat wave it is delightfully cool. The overseas planes, which I have watched many times, were moving down the lake toward Zurich airport, and this morning I suddenly realized that I can see the trains across the lake as well. Tiny moving bands of light, following the shore and disappearing behind trees or buildings. In 11 years in this apartment, I have never realized that the trains that I enjoyed watching from my former apartment also make a brief appearance in my line of sight here.

Chastened, I fetched breakfast and sat down on the porch to
watch the dawn, another first from this position. Following on the gradually increasing light was the sudden rosy pink illumination of the clouds nearest the horizon. As I watched, the clouds higher up glowed pink also, until the strips of cloud that always seem to hover in the east became a study in pink and purple. The color intensified and then the rim of the sun appeared, and the center spectacle moved from east to west. The trees on the hill glowed gold, and then the field further down, and finally the trees outside my building. The day had begun in beauty; something to carry with me throughout the hours to follow.

It’s easy to do things the same way every day, and of course routine is efficient and comforting. Once in a while, though, it is refreshing to break the pattern, even in small ways. Good for the old brain, too, from what one hears!

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Snake on the balcony

Sitting on my balcony, I do feel that I am in my little bit of paradise, as a friend has called it. Come time to water all the many plants on a hot day, however, and my plantation is more like a thirsty jungle. Back and forth to the kitchen with watering cans, often morning and evening. So when I saw a TV ad for a lightweight, expandable garden hose, I immediately sent for it. 700 grams of crinkled green tubing arrived, rather resembling a snake’s shed skin. Attached to the water faucet in the
kitchen, the snake sprang back to life, stretching out, writhing on the floor and looking decidedly eerie. Weirdness was forgotten once I opened the spray attachment at the end over a thirsty plant, as this gadget does just what a garden hose is supposed to do. Memories returned of watering gardens in my old life. My plants drank up the libation with their usual thirst and in a far shorter time. Whee! Furthermore, it is fun to use.

I’m sure that a garden hose snaking through the living room would not be welcome in everyone’s home, but my Ikea cotton rugs and tile floor would not mind a bit of dampening. Not that there is any sign of leakage; this is a well-made gadget. Worthy of comment by visitors, of course, as in “whatever is that wrinkly thing?!” A friend could hardly wait to order one for her garden, having had it with the heavy old-fashioned snake making its way from her bathroom tap out through her living room door.


One imagines second-hand stores full of these old rubber hoses, rather nostalgic actually. They stood between harvest and ruin, and no one knew of any other solution. My new snake is part of a long lineage, just in a more lighthearted, dancing form. Gardening is forever, and to be celebrated.