Seeing past

I'm not sure what you will see when you look at this photo.

Will it be the fact that I took it through the screen in my kitchen window? (Hence the fuzzy little squares.)

Will it be the unkempt patio and paths covered in waiting-to-be-raked leaves?

Or, like my husband when I tried to share the moment with him, will it be plants in various stages of decline and decay?


Want to know what I saw when I took it?


I saw an awesome kaleidoscope of colors, backlit by a luminous and low-slung autumn sun. I saw neighbors who had the foresight and good taste to plant red and yellow maples -- and I was grateful.

I saw a very obliging 'Miss Kim' lilac and a 'Snow Goose' ornamental cherry whose leaves picked up all the prominent colors, plus the golds of already-frozen hosta leaves.

And I saw a brilliantly-red euonymus alatus that -- five years from now, anyway -- will fill in that empty spot behind the tawny clethra and blue-green chamaecyparis to perfectly balance the color already on the other side of the yard.

I think gardening can sometimes be akin to mother love. You know, when that newborn baby is placed on your tummy -- wrinkly and red and all balled up -- and yet you see more. You see past the present and into the vast expanses of 'what will be.'

... and you smile.

Because, in that singular moment, what is, what was and what will be all blend together into one beautiful reality.