The Bush

You just got to take this for what it is…

The picture is of a bush that has grown taller than my house, standing not far from one of my kitchen windows, and just, well, you’ll see.

The Bush – pic by Randy Mazie

The Bush

There is a bush that stands on the side of my house, just outside my kitchen window.

I’ve never attended to it. It has grown higher than my house. Maybe I should have cut it down to a certain size when it was younger, and paid more attention to the ways and the shapes that most houses keep their bushes. But I didn’t, and this one just kept growing, and I loved it.

Twenty years have gone by. I sit in my kitchen and look out the window at it. Every morning, I say good morning to it. I watch it sway in the wind. Its leaves and branches weave back and forth as if it were dancing, and as if it were communicating to me through movement.

I have begun to imagine music playing as I watch it, the same music that I believe the bush is hearing and swaying to in time with. I close my eyes and listen, and see the bush dancing like an old time silent movie actress being projected on to the lids inside my eyes. My body begins to sway slightly as I watch, and I hum something softly, some tune that I do not know. I am making it up as I go along, but I’m certain it’s the same tune the bush is moving to.

It’s a happy bush. I know this, because as I watch it I am a very happy man. Not many people ever claim a bush outside their home which has taken on a majesty and personae like this one has. In fact, I know of nobody who has ever spoken to me of something like this, or I imagine ever would. But I will tell you why later.

I imagine sometimes that the bush is a scene of a harem of dancers, sensually stretching arms and undulating bellies beckoning new interests, tassels of sheer linen outfits flirting and bobbing, bells tingling coquettishly, hips thrusting, and cymbals bearing tidings from afar and invitations to join in. I am moved by all this, and I wallow in delight.

Do not ask me the kind of bush this is, because I do not know. I am not curious even to look it up, although I’d like to be able to answer your question should you feel the need to ask me. Mostly though, I am taken only by the fact that the bush is what it is. It is alive, it is a companion to me, and it is always in motion, always talking, always communicating. A living work of art, and dance.An independent living thing that has grown alongside with me. And, I believe it is a thing that appreciates the fact that I appreciate it.

As it stands outside my window, it is my company and my solace. It talks to me as I wash my dishes, pour my tea, sort out each piece of silverware into each slotted space of the drawer, sift through food in my refrigerator, and pick away at the meals that I cook for my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. And I speak back to it.

Many of you would wonder why I would even take the time to write about this. You may be thinking that it certainly doesn’t rise to the level of interest of, say, a “Burning Bush” which might really be something to write home about or, in my case, if I had written that I had seen one, move you to call the local chapter of the Psychiatric Association. And you may still decide to call, because I want to leave you with this thought. That that bush deserves to be there, in that exact spot, having grown that exact way, and having that ability to move in that exact wondrous way that it moves, as I have any right to be here on this earth, breathing this air, and having this experience in order to communicate how I feel about that bush to someone else.

Randy Mazie