Legacy Writing 365:184

If you faced the rock house we lived in, just to its right was a little clearing encircled by trees and bushes. It’s hard to tell in this snow-covered glimpse, but at the rear of that area was, in summer, the riotous beauty overlooked by my bedroom window. I would awaken earlier than everyone else on those hot mornings, lean on the windowsill, and stare out at a profusion of wildflowers, honeysuckle and other flowering vines, and an array of weeds that all seemed like something out of a storybook. I’d watch the bees and butterflies and dream little girl dreams of fairies, wee folk, and other magical beings.

And then one morning it wasn’t just a dream. Enchantment arrived with a tiny whir of blue and green wings. I ran to get my mother, but when she came to the window with me, it was gone. Instead of merely humoring my fanciful imagination, she asked me to describe it more exactly, and when I did, she knew I’d seen a hummingbird. But it wasn’t only a hummingbird the way she explained it. She let it be the most magical of creatures in my mind, and so it remains to this day.

I feel that I was exceptionally lucky to have parents who, even as they were mired in the practical matters of daily life, were willing to indulge their–and our–imaginations. It was probably on a day like the one pictured here:

when, after my father had cleared out weeds and brush, he dragged it all to a gravelly clearing some distance from the back of the house to burn it. As he stood there keeping a close watch on the fire, he caught sight of a gentleman in his peripheral vision.

“Good afternoon,” my father said and turned toward him.

Except no one was there.

“Probably just the old doctor,” my father said later when he told us about it. “Checking to make sure I was taking good care of things.”

He always did.