We’ve Moved

The big difference I feel, being in this house, is the announcement I make with every move within it; the floorboards do most of the talking, try as I may to pussyfoot from room to room, as I imagine what will go where. Our belongings arrive within the week. I’m enjoying the graceful expanse of sunlight across the hardwood floors, this immensity of personal space, after being in a hotel room for one month.

Arranging our nature walk loot on a quiet surface in the sunroom, I look out the window to spy quail silhouettes scampering beneath the rhododendron and a scrub jay punctuate the clover in blue. Unknown bulbs peep through pine needles. These walls, this acre, is filled with hope for the coming years. I’ll complain a lot about the Los Palo-Gato-Altos-View smog of silicon valley, but I’m amazed at how we manage to still smell grass and trees here in Saratoga, at the foot of the Santa Cruz mountains, who are (these days) obscured through milk glass. Here, the cleansing respite of a eucalyptus grove: towering twisted trunks with warping bark. Although the blossoms are brown, the hummingbirds are still fighting among the drooping boughs.