An Essy of LOVE - September 2023

I wanted to write an esay of love about my little house. It has been the longest romance of my life, almost 40 years! Walking up the path to my front door is a daily delight for me. As soon as I enter the shade of my tree crowded yard, I feel the love. This house is so much more than my shelter, it is my turtle shell, a part of me. All the homey details, like the two cats, Lucky and Mr. Boots meeting me and Uma at the bottom of the driveway when we come home from our walk, the trees waving their cheery greeting, all the green glow of the happy rain watered neighbors - the hollies and the cedars, the maple trees and the hedges, the leaves of the flourishing Lily of the valley - all of them speak to me and greeting me with their comradeship. The view out of each of my windows is a continuing joy to me and is always changing.

The window I see here from the sofa is a mosaic of green, and shadow with an occasional yellow leaf fluttering down like a bird. In a few weeks the leaves will change and carpet the yard a foot deep and the trees outside will present a black lacework of bare scratched ink drawn brnnches agains the sky.

A couple of times a week, I wave at the township maintenance men on the truck when they come for recycle or yard waste, or trash. They all know me and my dog and somehow some of them know my name and say "Hello Miss Wright!" Maybe they were students. I run into students from time to time, such as this past Monday when I went to the Dermatologist, the assistant said she had been a student of mine at Mary Ethel Costello School. I asked her if she still did art and she said she liked to do little painting on the beach. I was glad.

My house and I love to spend cozy evenings watching old mystery films. I am at present watching old Peter Wimsey episodes, but I think I have run out of my favorites, those with Ian Carmichael as Wimsey.

My nephew helped me take down my summer decorations yesteday and now it is time to put up the autumn ones - garland on the banisters and maybe some orange twinkle lights. I have two pots of chrysanthemums on the porch and a big fat pumpkin glowing with ripeness and fecundity, it will be a feast for the squirrels in a week or two. The cats and the dog and I were sitting on our shadow dappled porch in the frisky breeze admiring the pumpkin after our morning walk. The mums are still hiding in their buds and we will enjoy watching them open in the sunshine of each day marking the rest of this month of Septmmber In about 10 days it will be my 60h high school reunion. This will be the first one I attend without my best friend Chris who is wrapped in so many of my childhood memories that I can't think of her without crying. Every time I think of her, I think of Christmas and us showing one another our presents under the tree and our newest flowered flannel nightgowns still bright in color and not faded by many washings and so cozy on the cold winter nights in our bedrooms In fact, I have to leave that memory before it breaks me down and takes me from this happier moment.

It won't be as though I don't know any one at the reunion because I have re-acquainted myself with Sue Troy who will be moving up this way from down at the seashore soon now that she is widowed, and I will see Liz Sylvestry, formerly Betty Krachun, this grief stricken woman who has lost her husband, her son, and her own home and lives in an apartment made up for her by her grandson out of a basement in his building. How lucky I am that I have my own home and my daughter is well and my siblings are all well and we have each other.

Well I guess this is my big "Gratitude" for this day, a gratitutde for home, and small town living, and neihbors and sufficiency of every sort and all the many blessings that have been showered down on me like the golden leaves of the autumn trees.

Happy Trails - Jo Ann wrightj45@yahoo.com