When I was a kid growing up in Pennsylvania, we lived in a double (i.e., two-family) house on the outskirts of town. I spent summer evenings on the front porch, listening to my parents talking with the neighbors until long after the stars came out.
When I left for college, my parents built their dream house. I loved the screened porch, always shady and cool, and I vowed that some day I would have one like it. After college I lived in New York apartments, but when my youngest son was born we moved to an old house in the suburbs and added the screened porch I had dreamed of; it was like a treehouse.
When my life took a new direction, I lived in a succession of houses with a variety of outdoor living spaces: an upstairs balcony in Pennsylvania; a dusty backyard where nothing could grow in Santa Fe; a failed lawn in Albuquerque (nobody in their right mind would plant grass here); a brick patio in Denton, Texas, where I tripped over a hose and knocked out my front teeth; a deck on a Victorian house in Albuquerque with a xeriscaped garden; and now, the last stop, a sixth-floor apartment with two balconies and panoramic views of the Sandia Mountains to the east, extinct volcanoes to the west, and city lights every night.
Fortunately, there's room enough for a container garden with herbs and vines, and in one corner, pictured here, some flowers that have survived this summer's scorching heat. This is where I go to take a break from writing--to water the flowers and to refresh my brain.
When I left for college, my parents built their dream house. I loved the screened porch, always shady and cool, and I vowed that some day I would have one like it. After college I lived in New York apartments, but when my youngest son was born we moved to an old house in the suburbs and added the screened porch I had dreamed of; it was like a treehouse.
When my life took a new direction, I lived in a succession of houses with a variety of outdoor living spaces: an upstairs balcony in Pennsylvania; a dusty backyard where nothing could grow in Santa Fe; a failed lawn in Albuquerque (nobody in their right mind would plant grass here); a brick patio in Denton, Texas, where I tripped over a hose and knocked out my front teeth; a deck on a Victorian house in Albuquerque with a xeriscaped garden; and now, the last stop, a sixth-floor apartment with two balconies and panoramic views of the Sandia Mountains to the east, extinct volcanoes to the west, and city lights every night.
Fortunately, there's room enough for a container garden with herbs and vines, and in one corner, pictured here, some flowers that have survived this summer's scorching heat. This is where I go to take a break from writing--to water the flowers and to refresh my brain.