Creative Connections by Sara Aeikens

 

Taking a trip to Texas to visit my sister (my one and only sibling still surviving way down South) gave me great joy. Even more exciting was my son, David, inviting me to go for our first visit after she recently moved from Oklahoma with her youngest daughter to their new home near Tyler, Texas, where her other daughter teaches in the university in the science field.

My son and I flew down from the Minneapolis area where he lives and works for Minnesota Department of Transportation as an engagement officer, letting drivers in Hennepin County know about construction issues in the area. He was able to take off St. Patrick’s weekend, and I was able to stay almost another week to visit and lounge in her superb and spacious backyard.

What shall I share or record of this relaxing experience? The rhyme and rhythm of a bit of nature’s splendor or just the facts with a few floating emotions mixed in-between? At the mid-afternoon moment, I’m squiggled into a very comfortable wicker box chair with a mid-blue seat cushion, matching a two-seated sofa and another chair on the opposite side that might swivel. In the center of all three furniture pieces is a medium-sized glass-topped round coffee table.

I’m hearing sounds of all sorts, such as a prominent bird my sister labels to be a mocking bird. I note its white body could be edged in blue to match the outdoor cushions, but I can’t tell because the bird blends so well into the opening blossoms of white of the Bradford pear tree to the right of my lounging space on the backyard patio.

Next, I notice several other kinds of birds seemingly to be responding to my sister’s area oval ponds’ bird songs. Then, for the first time, I hear the rustlings of palm leaves on the lone palm tree to my left in front of the cement porch patio placed just outside the living room windows.

Then, the mocking bird flies to the most elevated palm tree leaf and noisily shares its song as the rustling branches subside as the wind stills itself. Oops, he swiftly takes flight towards the pond’s edge just on this side of the rustic grey wooden gate.

Near to the fence in front of the pond are trimmed bushes forming a half circle around the patio, going to just in front of the large, rounded rocks, making a pyramid rectangle fountain topped by several even larger rectangular rocks. Somewhere close to a left side patio brick pillar, there’s a switch to turn on the rock fountain rush of water. 

The neighbor across the pond is busy scooping out some of the “muck” from his side of the water’s edge. To the right of my sisters’ home, two young teenagers are chatting in their backyard when my sister opens her patio door from the kitchen on my left and brings us each a drink (of water!) and the Tyler Sunday newspaper. She was taking a break from sewing her daughter’s karate outfit that she wears for sessions at a fitness center. 

As the two of us sit with our sips of water, we enjoy the serenity interrupted several times by neighborly barking dogs and also the occasional sound of my sister’s musical and mellow elongated wind chimes, growing out of gorgeous tulip and daffodil beds my sister planted after moving from Oklahoma to Texas.

Sara Aeikens is an Albert Lea resident.