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Slice of Paradise

Thanks to my husband, we are living in a little corner of paradise. I don't want to tell you exactly where it is, because too many visitors or new residents would change this place.

I grew up on the San Francisco peninsula, left California after completing college in 1975, and moved to a small town in southeastern Washington state. Sixteen years later I married and moved to an even smaller town in Idaho.

The view from my windows encompass rolling farm fields, a verdant valley, a meandering, usually tame river, and wooded hills.

Paradise, of course, varies with the season. In winter, the snow plow's scraping on the highway is as pleasant a sound as the squeaking crunch of snow underfoot. But I prefer spring and fall. The rumble of logging and chip trucks are as satisfying as the chink-a-chink of an old-time cash register to a merchant. One slow-moving train and its wailing whistle conjure up traveling fantasies. In the heat of summer, the croaking of the tiny frogs that like the moist shadows under our house, mixed with the chirping of crickets and the buzzing whine of cicadas raise a racket that to my ears are sweet music.

Traveling, though pleasant, only makes home, our slice of paradise, look better to me.

Michol Ann


 

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