There's Always a New Vista on the Horizon

Sittting in my chair and looking to my left I see my neighbor must have installed a new garage door. I can see through the back window of the garage now to the sunny, yellow house across the street . I see through two windows to a spot beyond which previously wasn't visible. It's a tiny change in perspective, yet still a change. As artists and photographers we take note of such subtleties.

Night before last I was sleeping soundly in my bed. Then I awoke in panic - startle mode. My heart was rushing. I knew I'd had a dream but that wasn't what woke me. There'd been a sound, a crashing sound. As if someone had taken all my deck furniture and driven it into my house.

Same view New cam

It wasn't a logical thought. It was driven by panic. There was no one beside me in bed to reach out to to ask if they'd heard. It was all up to me to deduece. I lay there for a few more minutes waiting to hear if there was anything else. I listened for another crash. If it had been a car crash likely there'd be some other sounds, probably human. My heart was still pounding as if a bomb had gone off.

Next, I heard my daughter's footfalls coming swiftly downstairs. She'd been awake, on her computer, video chatting with a friend.

"Mom, did you hear that ? The whole house shook. What was it?"

Gathering mother courage I stood up and looked out my bedroom window. Then I saw a massive limb had falllen from the tree out front. It just narrowly missed my picket fence and was blocking nearly the entire street.

Picnic

I'd just taken it's picture recently. Now it was on the ground. My daughter and I pranced about in nervous excitement not knowing what to do. She ran for her camera and took some shots in the dark.(She's my kid, after all.) We watched as the first car approached and crept cautiously around. There was room enough on one side for single passage.

I went back to bed for a few minutes to think. Call the police and tell them my tree fell down? Surely someone else would call. I don't know why I hesitated. I do know I was a bit secretly pleased to think speeders who frequent my street now had a road block to slow them down.

Lying in bed I became aware the police had arrived. Their spotlights reflected in through my bedroom window. I got up and faced the music.

I opened the front door and said, "Good morning." It was one a.m.

"Did you call this in?" the police officer who looked twelve years old asked.

"No, I didn't, it just happened a few minutes ago. What happens next?"

He told me the Department of Public Works would be by to move it.

Relieved, I went back to bed. I wouldn't have to spend the next morning searching for an arborist before work at my new job. It would be taken care of. The best possible outcome.

The men came and sawed some limbs off and moved the massive main limb by bucket loader to my neighbor's lawn. Leaving it to rest till morning.

I'd been thinking for a long while I should take my camera to bed to capture some of the lovely filtered light in my room in the early morning that the tree made. With a third of the tree's canopy gone that's no longer an option.

I'm left with a new vista and the reminder there's always no time like the present.