The privet is dense with aromatic flowers that remind me of my beloved lilacs. Here the privet drapes and creates romantic vignettes and hides a little nest of baby birds outside our bedroom window.

I feel like a great explorer or emerging biologist- or maybe botanist or ornithologist- from my perch. Our brick walled car port became my sitting porch once we fenced it in, and there I can sit with my new binoculars looking through the endless canopy of verdant and lush leaves, thick as a jungle. Cacophonies and symphonies emerge from the forest.

When I was young, I wanted to be a scientist and explorer. I watched the movie Born Free every time it came on the television. I fell in love with Jane Goodall and met her once after we saw her speak some ten years ago. I, too, want to sit in the forests and savannahs researching, recording, being one with the wild, wide world past the cities and normal life, with my beloved animals and winged ones and plants. I sit in my rocking chair pretending whilst deciding what I want to be when I grow up. Hundred foot high trees capture my imagination. A girl who grew up in the high desert could get lost in the romance of this place.

I painted the front door yesterday. That may not mean much to you, but let me tell you, nowhere in my personality allows for a mute, sandy brown door. Yet, I have let it remain for the eight and a half months since we have moved here. I’m busy watching the forest. The wild grapevine scampers so high, that I expect a monkey to come swinging through at any moment. But I finally claimed my house.

It takes twenty minutes to paint the front door. That way you have put a mark on your home. “This is my home!” it sings. I painted the front door an exuberant berry pink. It is one of my favorite colors. Ever since Waverly came out with their Norfolk rose pattern, I have loved it. Now, when you happen upon my house, you shall see the front door, and think, “Oh, this must be where Katie lives.”

Then you must bring your binoculars and field guides and we shall sit on the veranda drinking sweet tea and be rocking chair explorers.