TheBanyanTree: On Leaving This Place

[NancyIee at aol.com]

All I wanted, coveted, dreamed about for eons was living in a little old 
beach house, one of those small, rustic places with sand for a lawn and a 
bearing 
orange tree somewhere out back. And a pond. It had to have a pond, for my 
fishes and the egrets to wade and to reflect the sky.

I have that place, plus a hammock on the beach strung between two Australian 
Pines, once planted by myself and a neighbor. I relax there and read, or not, 
if the view is more interesting, which it usually is.

I have nearly an acre, the pond abrim with turtles and waterlilies, a 
fountain, and four bright Koi who come when I clap my hands. They know that 
signals 
the feasttime.

But, I'm a country gal at heart, and the rising traffic and population here 
at times becomes smothering. The annual State Fair visit is about all the 
crowd 
I want, and that's only for a day.  The bridge is up more often than not on 
the road leading from this little island to the mainland. Rich people have 
big 
boats with tall masts, you see, and they hold up 500 cars several times a day 
when the bridge must raise to let them by. Time stops when the bridge is up, 
tempers flare, and by the time the traffic finally clears, the next big boat 
honks its arrival.

I drive into the country, outside the freeway races, and find a plot of 
trees, slash pines and lofty oaks right out of Gone With The Wind. A few 
acres, not 
a farm. Just a few acres of birdsong and soft winds in the pines. Anyone who 
has heard the wind in pines knows that sound. Angels wings.

I am drawn there, to the quiet, to the isolation.

A dilemma, leave the beach house that I love for a few acres of solitude?

Hmmmm.

It bears much heavy thought.

NancyLee