A green columnar juniper can give one seven-year old girl new to a small town outside a big city a fear of strangers (Don’t get too close. Stay away. Mind your manners, mind their lines), a love of questions (Why? Why not?), and a nagging sense (annually and perennially) that she will never belong where she has been planted.
(Don’t get too close. Stay away. Mind your manners, mind their lines),(Why? Why not?),(annually and perennially)The move had been planned for months. Mama would spend nights at the kitchen table searching listings. Red and black markers, with thick swipes of quick-dry ink, would create Xs and Os across glossy, laminated sheets. A friend-turned-realtor, or maybe realtor-turned-friend, would drop a stack off every so often. I was the seven-year old girl who would linger
