Where these hydrangeas came from.

We're home, and I am feeling quiet, but wanted to stop in here and say hello.

::

I grew up in this town, in a house built in 1969 that, until we sold it five years ago, never was home to another family but mine.

This house, on a little half-acre, was surrounded by woods and fields full of tall grasses, and lilacs, and apple trees, and pricker-bushes, and hydrangeas, and bittersweet vines tangled all the way up the limbs of tall, tall trees.

One day, a few years ago, all of that land was sold, and someone came in and chopped down many of the trees, and paved over much of the field, and built very,very big houses.

For a while Tim and I lived in a small cottage on the edge of this property, and I would still walk over and cut branches of pretty things all year long to put in our house. I felt that I grew up in those fields and those woods, and that it was my right. I'm sure it was wrong, but still, that's what I did.

After a while, all of the flowering bushes and trees disappeared. Bulldozed over, or died off, or, maybe, were moved.

Today driving through that place for the first time in a while, I spotted a hydrangea tree all pink and healthy, and pulled over in a space where someone had moved the boulders that line the road. I trudged right through the un-mowed grass left in one of the few un-built up lots, and cut off some branches for home.

I'm sure it was wrong, but still, that's what I did.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt