Our first house was a cape on a sloping hill which had once been farmland. The grass was thick and verdant, soil rich from cows and corn. After several years I had it painted a soft butter yellow, the shutters on the windows and door a deep green and the door remained a deep cranberry. It looked like a Christmas house. I called it "my daffodil on a hill".
The house was very well built with an eye to detail. The living room had an enormous window, wider than our sofa. I'd love to sit in the corner opposite the window and watch the two hundred year old maples turn their deep vibrant colors in the fall. The slope of green, the tumbling farmer's rock wall, the two huge canopies of the maples with the blue blue sky behind was always a place I cherished, for reflection, for peace.
When we moved to the new house, we were once again on a hill. Where the ground at the old house was fertile, this was rocky and made of ledge. I'd found a spot to look out. Where I had once had distance in the old house, I had tree trunks. Everything was so close. The worst part was, although the area was wooded, no maples were around.
Instead of intense color, I watched potato chips fall from limbs. It upset me every year that I didn't have the beauty I had at the old house. This morning I realized how silly that thinking is.
I kept thinking of what I didn't have, what I didn't want to change rather than relishing what I have, what is in the present. And you know what? This new way of thinking makes life a whole lot easier!
