What does it mean to stay in the same house for such a long time? Longer than I've lived anywhere else. Forty-four years! Yes, it means you grow old along with your house. And the young boys, ages seven and four when we moved here, have grown up and moved on. Married and had children of their own. Those children have all run up and down the stairs in this glorious house. Their laughter still ringing in my ears. That room on the upper left, once was the older boy's, then the younger boy's, then a granddaughter's. That spacious room turned into my art room and from it have flowed all the paintings you see on this website.
That tree on the left was a beautiful pink tulip magnolia. Magnificent and perfect for two boys to climb. Alas, it was strangled to death by wisteria. Yes, you heard me right. Read "The Giant Wisteria" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman if you don't believe me. But I was young and innocent when it came to the garden and I thought the wisteria, cloaked around the tree like a necklace, was beautiful. But it killed the tree like the most merciless killer in an Agatha Christie mystery. Later I planted a weeping cherry blossom tree in that spot, and it brings the Spring every year. Black-eyed susans still smile under the fir tree. Though they are more spare, shade will do that. And the red roses still bloom every Memorial Day. That prize winning yellow dahlia has never been reduplicated, though I remembered it in a painting, "Nude Woman With Dahlia". The bluejay is emblematic of so many that have made our house their home, nesting in the upper rafters of our front porch. Our house has grown old along with us. How I cherish it and all the memories, inside, outside and yet to come.
That tree on the left was a beautiful pink tulip magnolia. Magnificent and perfect for two boys to climb. Alas, it was strangled to death by wisteria. Yes, you heard me right. Read "The Giant Wisteria" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman if you don't believe me. But I was young and innocent when it came to the garden and I thought the wisteria, cloaked around the tree like a necklace, was beautiful. But it killed the tree like the most merciless killer in an Agatha Christie mystery. Later I planted a weeping cherry blossom tree in that spot, and it brings the Spring every year. Black-eyed susans still smile under the fir tree. Though they are more spare, shade will do that. And the red roses still bloom every Memorial Day. That prize winning yellow dahlia has never been reduplicated, though I remembered it in a painting, "Nude Woman With Dahlia". The bluejay is emblematic of so many that have made our house their home, nesting in the upper rafters of our front porch. Our house has grown old along with us. How I cherish it and all the memories, inside, outside and yet to come.
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