Wednesday 8 April 2009

Hello House

This is my new space. It's very close to my old home but has a very different feel. The Cascade valley is like many other valleys in the northern range. Big basins of green that catch the trade winds and swoop them down towards the hot city. I am surrounded by large mahogany trees, a sapodilla populated by swooping bats, and a large breadfruit tree. Cascade has its own spirit. My red sealing wax palm has made the transition with little ado. A bit of sulking and drooping but generally he has rallied and seems to be thriving in his new home. Sealing wax palms are quite difficult to come by and grow extremely slowly and that's why this poor palm had to pack up his whole root ball and trudge across the valley with me.

My baskets are also happyWhich makes me happy. This house does not seem to be larger than my old home but it actually has more flat land. The soil is better as well and I hope to be able to do quite a bit of propogating while I am here so that I can return everything to the garden in At Ann's when I move back.
Isobel had never lived in the shadow of a mahogany tree. It stood tall, reaching towards the sky with a sense of purpose that gave off resinous clicks as it stretched its branches over the house. In the evening, the tree turned its leaves to catch the dry season breeze that rode down the valley on the cool trade winds. If she listened from the kitchen, Isobel could hear the tiny pops as the tree released its cocoa-shaped pods, setting free the little helicopter-spirals that took root in the crevices below the mango tree. Each morning she collected the spent husks where they lay curled like tiny sculptures on the sloping lawn that ran to the edge of the driveway.
That's what I wrote when I moved here.
I think the house has good creative energy.