I was in therapy but my therapist changed from psychotherapy to hair. She now owns a salon and does hair extensions. It was an odd time a couple of years ago when I was phasing out my therapy and she was starting up her hair business. We had my sessions at the salon. I sat in the chair. Not the wide, sinking couch I had sat on in her living room, but the chair where she could have come over, pumped several times with her foot, and it would have raised or lowered three inches. That chair.
Anyway, that’s neither here nor chair in describing this morning’s drop off. There was only one because that’s all I had time for but it was perfect and sweet and left me, once again, smiling all the way to work.
There are a cluster of houses right by our home that have always intrigued me. They intrigue me because a) they look like they belong in the country and b) because of that, they remind me of my grandfather’s house in rural Pennsylvania. My grandfather passed away many years ago but the house remains and my father actually owns a house close to the one my grandfather had owned. When Southern writers like Faulkner or Flannery O’Conner talk about a character’s connection to the land I always think “I understand that”, because that’s how I feel with the house and land in Pennsylvania. I go there once a year. And for the past two years my father and I have gone there together. We didn’t really plan it that way, it just somehow happened.
I will tell you two things about my father. One, he doesn’t fly and two, he’s kind of a hero/rock star to seven children. Children who are married and have children. One on one time in our big family is a rare bird. So trust me, when I reaassure you how incredible this time together in Pennsylvania has become. And we’re planning on going there again in June. Anyway, this little cluster of houses in Los Angeles reminds me of this favorite place. I knew that’s where I wanted to leave the bouquet.
The only way to get to these cluster of houses it to enter a collective driveway. Once I turned off the main road and entered their property, I felt very conspicuous. I wanted to leave the flowers at the first house but there were some DWP looking workers in front and I didn’t want it to be confusing. So I kept driving. It’s a fairly small space so driving forward felt like I was doing donuts on their front lawn. Again, very conspicuous. While there were cars at the first house where the work was being done, there didn’t seem to be anyone home at the other houses. That was, until the black Prius rolled up. I stopped the donuts, rolled down my window and casually asked “Do you live here?”
A brunette woman with a Juliette Binoche, elegance about her said “yes”. I should have mentioned that one of these houses had a gorgeous garden. Stunning. It was hers. She loved the gesture, told me her name and invited me to come back and visit sometime. When I explained what I was doing she got very excited about leaving them on her neighbor’s back door (the first house with the workers). Apparently, as she was on her way home, her husband called her to say that the woman’s husband had just gone in the hospital. So she lead me to her neighbor’s back door. I got another flashback to Pennsylvania and left the flowers there.
By about two o’clock with deadlines, crises, and nonstop work, the drop off seemed further and further away. But when I thought about it the feeling of the experience was always there. And the feeling I liked most was that by turning left into that driveway this morning, I felt my world expand.
