One Thanksgiving

The first time we saw this house, it was about two-thirds finished. It had an ordinary, just-like-every-other suburban-home front but we walked in and were greeted by a view out the back windows that was tree-house stunning. That’s because the house sits on a shallow, steep lot at what was then the northern edge of town, bordered on the north side by walnut trees and a creek. Every time we visited the house, we always looked OUT, never IN. A few days after we moved in, I thought, “You know, the rooms are kind of small!”

But the outside: trees, birds, deer, and yes a few pesky dirt bikers in some years I ran off with a witchy brandishing of a broom. The first few weeks in the house, it felt like we lived in a zoo. Then I realized it was the sound of peacocks, when one strutted into the yard.

There was sledding in snow on the hill, the sound of the creek when it rained, the cacophony of cicada in the summer, the suicidal splat of bugs against our windows at night so hard and constant it sounded like hail.

Our new place won’t be like this. Nothing else could be.