Before I had noticed here it is.

This is the Spirea plant in the small garden at the front of the house. When did she grow small white flowering bells? Perhaps when I was training briefly for a brief job.

When we first looked at this apartment it was only renovated on the inside. Outside the brown shingles were, in places, flapping off the house. I didn't notice it. We had been living in a place horrible inside and out. It was a temporary sojourn after losing our home of 11 years. (The house was sold and they didn't want tenants.) I heard about this apartment from Lucille who'd run into Kasha who was moving.

I went over at 5:30 the morning after her phone call and despite its being late winter I saw the front garden in full bloom. My imagination captured the spirit of the garden though it was months before it would actually flower (and it did, there were strawberries, too.) When I finally saw the inside I was blown away. So beautiful. That's now 7 years ago.

This beautiful little tree flowered before our crocuses because she sits in the sunlight. I have to look at the garden every day now for the joyful reminder that lo the winter is past.

In a crazy way right after we moved in I began to feel bad that we'd gotten this wonderful place to live. I thought what if it's like the story "The Monkey's Paw" and something terrible will happen now. But I had the great luck to run into Michael O'Leary, singer and poet, in the local co-op and he said offhandedly, "Oh, I've often had good karma with apartments." And so I felt better about it.