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Bamboo and Pine

On warm days like today, I like talking a two mile walk that takes me to the high school in the neighborhood and back. Houses on one side of the street are a older and more idiosyncratic than the cookie-cutter boxes on the other. Some days, I pause to imagine the story of people living one of those older homes. Today was when I made up one about the house with pines and bamboos forming the fence line. Big strong trees jostling for space, often competing with each other.

Last week I was listening to Respighi's Pines of Rome at a concert, this morning was a frustrating meeting with an Italian client. So pines and Italy came to mind at once seeing those trees. I imagined an Italian man married to Chinese woman living in that house. They has planted those trees on their wedding day to symbolize their union. It would have been a long time ago, so this is an old couple now - maybe they have grand-kids and are retired. What might the exuberant growth of these tree symbolize ?  A real marriage with struggle for space, power and control but also a vibrant and evergreen relationship that has withstood the ravages of time. 

I have never seen the people who live in this house but my imagined story of who they might be turned them real for me.

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