When I moved to Baltimore, almost five
years ago, I met so many wonderful people and discovered a network of chesed
organizations, frum magazines, and well-stocked kosher stores and
restaurants. I also found my favorite spot in our house: the window by the
kitchen table. It faces the backyard and acts like a camera capturing the
changing seasons, animal visits, and other scenes throughout the year.
This morning,
as I sit down to a breakfast of a Goldberg’s blueberry gluten-free bagel with
cream cheese, I roll up the blinds to the top of the window and breathe in the
beauty of the fall foliage. A massive tree with orange and golden leaves rises
above my neighbor’s fence and reaches almost to the azure sky. When the sun comes
out behind a puffy, white cloud, the leaves of that tree sparkle and dance,
holding on for dear life. Other, smaller trees shared by several neighbors
still have their colorful leaves, but not the one tree in our own backyard.
With only its
wide trunk and bare branches, my backyard tree looks like a tall, homeless
figure among the others in their fancy clothes. Already in August, its
beautiful green leaves started turning yellow and then quickly fell to the
ground, carpeting the grass. But before it lost its leaves, black walnuts fell
from the tree providing food for scampering squirrels.
Besides
squirrels, I’ve spotted other animals and birds from my kitchen window. Once in
a while, a small, grey rabbit with a white pom pom tail, like the ones on children’s
and women’s winter hats, hops around the yard. Last winter, I looked out the
frosted window and saw a red fox dash across the grass and burrow into a hole
in my neighbor’s fence. When spring came, I saw my neighbor and her husband
walk over to my side of the fence to inspect the hole. Soon, it was repaired.
One spring
morning, from the kitchen window, I saw a very large grey and white bird
perched on a branch in my favorite tree. I walked around the back to get a
closer look. I crept closer and closer until I was under the branch with the
bird above me. It didn’t move which made me think it might attack. So I quickly
snapped a picture to post on our family app. A cousin identified the bird as an
osprey and said, “It won’t hurt you; it’s only looking for food.” The osprey
flew back the next day and the next and pecked at something in the yard. When
it flew off for the last time, I took a video to share with the family showing
the deep orange color on the bottom of the osprey’s huge wings.
One early summer
evening, my husband and I were eating dinner in the kitchen when a young
cardinal lifted off from our picnic
table into the air. It flew for only a few seconds, its small wings fluttering
wildly, then it flew back again and again to its home base on our table.
“Quick, where are the binoculars?!” I asked my husband. Seeing a red cardinal
up close – any bird for that matter – is so exciting.
Deer, seen
mostly at dusk, are less appreciated, especially by gardeners. My neighbor has
tried everything to keep those deer from eating his tomato plants and other
vegetables, without much success. And one morning, I walked out my front door
and saw that my newly planted flowers had lost their heads! Regardless of the
problem with deer destroying plants and leaving ticks to worry about, few could
deny that the sleek, beige animals are beautiful creatures. A friend visiting
from Israel came over one Friday night, her eyes wide with wonder. “I just saw
a deer with huge antlers walk in front of me!” she said.
When visiting
from the South, my children and grandchildren run from window to window to
watch the deer. Sometimes, to the children’s delight, a family of deer,
including spotted fawns, moves gracefully across the lawn, bending down to eat
whatever they find hidden in the grass and then stroll over to the next yard.
Throughout the year, on Shabbos morning, I
look out the window and see men, women, and children take a shortcut through
our backyard. One Shabbos afternoon, a father with his children about to walk through
the shortcut, saw me standing out front and asked, “Is this your house? Do you
mind that we walk through the yard?”
“I don’t mind
at all,” I said. If I had a pool in my backyard or a ferocious dog (highly
unlikely), I wouldn’t be happy if people took a shortcut through my grass. But
since I have neither, I really enjoy watching others benefit from our yard. The
father said, “I’m a doctor and if you ever need me, I’m in the house behind
you.” He obviously also wanted to help us, so we now take a shortcut home from
shul through his backyard.
This morning,
as I finish breakfast, I hardly want to leave the scene of my neighbors’ trees
bursting with color even though our own tree is bare. It’s comforting to know
that in the spring, all the bare trees will bud, then grow leaves and come
alive again – like a window on techiyas hameisim (revival of the dead).
Throughout the seasons, looking out my kitchen window, I see the magnificent
work of Hashem – and His promise for the future.
