Shadows are Falling

Spending more time at home during the pandemic heightened my awareness of the permeable boundary between inside and outside, and the wonders nature brings into our living space. Over the years the Otetar tree in a neighboring yard has gradually ascended five stories and creates the lush green canopy of rainswept energy outside our north windows, and at times a snow-encrusted roost for American robins. Meanwhile, a common rubber plant has been our steadfast indoor companion, then a forest of high rises rapidly closing in on us from the north serve as a canyon of funhouse mirrors at all hours of the days, bouncing fragmented beams of light into our apartment and creating a magic carpet illusion when a super moon appeared. A seagull perched on the steeple of a church next door appeared in dream-like reflection through our west windows at sunset one night. On the anniversary of 9/11, twin beams of light, refracted in our living room, offered a poignant reminder of lives lost then, as well as lives lost now from Coronavirus, an invisible pathogen spread far and wide outside the safe confines of our home.