Across the bottom of this blog is the Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote that was my theme for this blog and inspired its name and website address:
"A score of household selves polish the floors,
replenish pantry shelves,
ticking to duties all the clock-told day,
without a window-look across the way."
While I chose Lindbergh's lines because I wanted my blog to look out into the world around me, to open up my view, to reach out to other women and see into their lives and let them see into mine, it seems as if my other blog, Dewena's Window, has become a way to do that and this one, it's mother, has become a way to record bits of my life that slip by so swiftly and my thoughts that if not recorded quickly disappear into vapor before the day is gone.
Not that I want to become closeted off from the world but am just choosing to keep the Window open for that purpose instead of here.
And so Across the Way has become a way of enlarging my world within my world, the world of my family, my pets, my home and garden, and my community. And my soul.
But Across the Way was also meant to literally give anyone who visited a look into my life and I guess both my blogs do that, the same way that every blog does. And it was meant to literally give me a look out of my windows and into my windows, something that gave me so much pleasure at Valley View.
I truly believe I grow more appreciative with each passing year of what I see both outside my home and inside my home. RH understands the importance of this to me and worked creatively at Valley View to give me those beautiful looks out the windows, something pretty to look at outside every window and door. And he's working towards that very purpose here at Home Hill.
Some things RH doesn't have to improve, God and nature have already taken care of that, along with homeowners who have lived here since 1935. The large tree in our back yard is an example of that. While I might have chosen to plant a sugar maple instead of this American tulip tree, a tulip tree is what I have and I bless it every day.
After heavy storms during the night, I pulled up my bedroom shades and looked out.
Looking back in at me were dozens of yellow tulips studding large green leaves that still held teardrops of rain.
These are the moments that stop me in my tracks,
mesmerize me,
feed my soul,
remind me of who I am and what I need.
My mind needs times like this,
and so I climbed back into my rumpled bed
and propped up on pillows.
Then I just looked.
Through the window and across the way.
And I gave thanks for the American tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipi fera) that is the Tennessee state tree. It provides us with beauty, shade, a bouquet of yellow tulips in May, rustling sounds from the wind all summer and clapping sounds in autumn before the leaves turn yellow and carpet the ground beneath.
