As I stand outside on the small deck this morning, I feel like I am in the bird’s playground. A potpourri of chatter fills my ears with playful laughter. Slightly overcast—the blue patches of sky play peek-a-boo with the trailing fog. The hills are pale yellow as they should be in the Summertime. The bamboo leaves me with surprise. I had forgotten that this past winter it was withered and yellow like the hills. I had forgotten that it seems to thrive under the sun, not the rain, at least here that is how it acts. It seems to die into itself in the winter months, but now as I look out at the bamboo, I see that it is vibrant and green, reaching up. If I were a tree, I would be a bamboo.

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Photo taken August 2009 on a clear blue summer day.