You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!
The oak tree on the side of the house decided that it had grown mature enough. His roots pulled from the ground, and I swore I heard him scream. He fell gracefully onto the group of three trees in my landlord’s front yard. She had decorated them to look like faces, so the past few months has been a bit like living in the land of Oz. But now those trees, too, are laid to rest.
The small army of tree workers arrived, and they slowly began removing the trees from our properties. The neighborhood women, dressed in their expensive exercise attire, stood by watching, solemnly shaking their heads, and saying, “It’s so sad.”
Sergeant Tree Dude says that the trees in this neighborhood could all come down during the next big storm. It’s their time.
One of them decided not to wait that long. In that same graceful, almost slow motion way, it came down. It’s laying across my landlord’s roof, but except for one dent, harmless as a fender bender, the house if fine. Of course, the tree army had to leave before cutting it down. I’ve been informed that a strong wind could roll it onto another tree, one beside my house. If that happens, I’ll most likely have a tree in my dining room.
And then there’s the gas leak. The trees broke one of the lines, and then I couldn’t smell those slow-cooked apples so well anymore.
I stood out in the street in the drizzle until they turned the gas off. I looked at that funny little house, and I knew the fortune was right.
Confucius say, “You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!”
It’s true. It’s exactly what I want. I may not have this home forever. Heck, if a storm comes in, I may not have it tomorrow. But I always want to feel the way I did this morning, which is safe and at peace in my own home. I never used to be that way. Only ten years ago, my family called me “the wandering waif.” I was living overseas, and as soon as I got a wad of cash, I headed for the nearest plane, train, or ship. Experience and adventure was what I wanted back then. Four walls, furniture, an extensive collection of hard cover books– these were only things that could weigh a person down. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I think maybe I was afraid of feeling like I did today, standing in the drizzle, wondering if my house was about to blow up.
Today, I am left with more questions than answers. In the movie Up, the main character empties his belonging out the door, and then his house lifts away into the heavens. This freed him up to have new adventures. Am I anchoring myself by caring so much about this place? Fairy Buddha Godmother, are the fallen trees your way of telling me that my attachment to a puddy-colored duplex is silly, my belief in permanence futile? Are you telling me to leave? Or are you telling me to fight for what I have?
