A peeping tom at my window

Lying on my bed a few afternoons ago, I felt someone watching me. Here's a photograph I took of the peeping tom!

This is one of the reasons I love being home; there aren't a lot of big cities I have been in where I can wake up to loud, chirping birds and scampering squirrels. And because my apartment is high up, I'm at perfect eye level with the top of this tree, which affords me the chance to look right into this world I could never access otherwise: the world that unfolds amongst the squirrels and the birds right where the trees touch the sky!

The tree, by the way, is a Gulmohar. For those of you that have read my poetry, these cocoons will blossom into the "peacock flowers" (isn't the English name for the tree lovely?) that I wrote of. While in India, I had never realized just how important this tree was to me, but while I was away, it somehow became a symbol of home. Now, I am eagerly awaiting April, when my Gulmohar blooms. I haven't seen those beautiful red flowers in five years now; just being there for this year's springtime blossoming feels like a good reason to be home!

Gosh, I have spent so time lately staring at this tree and at all its tree life. I think of Sarah Wider and of Emerson and his dialogs with nature. How blessed am I to literally wake up to nature every morning?