It so happens these hydrangea were flowers on a Sunday two years ago, in a different image, but still.  Decembers do look and feel alike, as winter begins to spread and do her work.  Not all somber tones to be sure, but muted like soft music, before the stalks and branches and lingering leaves are inevitably hushed in drifting snow.

Two years ago I did not know how I would ever pay this rent or come to terms with the disrepair and dirty surfaces in this building, or the screaming toddler downstairs.  I did know that nothing could make up for the shock and disruption of what I had lost – my home and my person – except the big, south facing windows.  Where I could have as many flowers as I needed – whether I could afford them or not – in all the light the day would offer.  And where I could look for something in the flowers that I could not otherwise learn.

The only forward thinking I usually do is worry.  You know – where you anxiously think about how it will be when something bad happens in the future, and imagine your present life as if that future already happened.

So I did not imagine this future, two years hence.  Accommodated to the things my landlords are too indifferent to maintain.  Disturbed and irritated by the terrible vehemence of a screaming three year old.  And simply watching the light pass in the big, south facing windows – relieved that I don’t need to find any thing other than pleasure in its transiting changes, to make today worthwhile.