Northport, Alabama

Before I left Tuscaloosa, I walked outside my apartment and gazed up through the branches of the silver-leaf maple tree outside my bedroom window. I have sat beneath it with my PowerBook, typing the afternoon away. I have planted flowers beneath it. I have laid on my back in the thick green grass, looking up through these same branches and daydreaming as squirrels and cardinals chatter above my head.

It is the first sight I see in the morning when I open my eyes, and the last sight I see at night as I take one final look out the window before going to bed. On stormy nights, I watch its shadow on my ceiling, see the storm-tossed branches rake the walls, hear the wet leaves lash against my window as the rain pours down.

Friday I noticed that the tree is beginning to prepare for spring, and all I can say is that it’s not a day too soon. That tree has weathered so many storms, but somehow it always survives. And when I return home from Mobile, it will be the first sight that I see as I round the corner of my apartment complex. It seems appropriate somehow.

Music of the day: Flood by Jars of Clay