Thinking in the Trees

Just outside our bedroom door is a worn wooden deck with comfortable lounge chairs nestled under two Arizona ash trees we planted a few years after we built our home. I remember leaning over the white iron railing two decades ago, wondering what our family would be like by the time the saplings grew tall enough to shade the deck.

One is a girl tree, loaded with seedlings, and one is a boy tree, larger and less full from the weight of offspring. Birds come and go, sometimes encouraged by seed from a feeder. It is a wonderful place to appreciate the neighbor's yellow roses spilling over the fence, morning air washed clean by the rain, and solitude. Life becomes clearer when contemplated here.