Sense of Place

Virginia flower garden





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     I've lost my sense of place.  I finally figured it out.  Since moving here last spring, I no longer belong to where I came from, but don't belong where I am now.  My heart is having difficulty embracing this dry, dusty, semi-rural area in the desert southwest.  I really miss the green, humid mid-Atlantic.  Oh, to see real trees with leaves as large as my hand.  I was thinking about my old home and yard yesterday.  I could picture where every piece of furniture was in every room, all the pictures and photos on the walls, the curtains on the windows.  I mentally walked around the yard and saw every flower and bush I ever planted:  the helleborus, the 200 daffodils, the brunnera with its heart-shaped leaves and delicate blue flowers, the pink and white azalea bushes, the climbing hydrangea on the back fence, the nandina bushes with their colorful red berries, the aromatic summersweet, my David Austin and Knockout roses, pink coneflowers, black-eyed susans, my purple clematis and midnight salvia, hardy geraniums, the blue periwinkle around the base of the oak tree, the golden arborvitae and American boxwood bushes, the cherry tree in the front yard and the holly bushes in the back yard.  I miss the green grass and all the flowering and leafing.  I am a displaced person.