View Master

The view from my office window doesn't change a lot. I can see the magnolia tree we planted when my son was born. I suppose if you take into account twenty-three years, the view may have changed quite a bit. The birch trees on the other side of the driveway are new since then too. So are the planter boxes that hold our vegetable garden. The plum tree seems to be anxious to keep pace with the magnolia, so I guess what I'm really saying is that the view from my office window has changed a lot.
Over time. Fence posts and slats have been replaced. The lawn that was once a hardened layer of clay was churned up by yours truly, sending a friend's rototiller to an early grave. Thus a trend began in which I would break at least one tool in every household project I took on. Shovels, hammers, saws, you name it, I've broken it. Those scars are not in evidence from my window, however.
The street is pretty much the same, with the possible exception of the speed bumps that our neighborhood petitioned for and got back when we were all parents of toddlers. The teenager across the street is now a father himself, having grown up to marry and raise a little boy and a girl of his own. Next door to him is the house where the core group of children lived. If their lives had been more amusing or somewhat less tragic, they could have been in a sitcom. Instead, they grew up and scattered, if only briefly since most of them live within a few blocks of their original homestead.After they moved out, contractors came in and made the most out of the broken down hulk of a house across the street. New front door, and new windows out of which a teddy bear stares, sharing space from time to time with a black cat. Gone are the herds of adolescents who paraded by in hopes of catching one of the girls' eyes.
The mural that was mostly finished on the garage door is now mostly obscured by the aforementioned trees. The stated goal, graffiti discouragement, turned out to be real and true. The painting done has been left essentially untouched for more than a decade now. The shadowy figures seem to call out for some sort of additional color or attention, but time has called game over on that project. Which is fine, since it continues to justify my assertion that the view outside my office window hasn't changed much. Not in the past few days. Or six months.
All of which seems to suggest I should get back to staring out that window. You never know when a new tree is going to spring up.