Lynn Curtis
I never thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up. All I knew was what I was, and that was about an acre of possibilities. The “acre” was the outer boundaries of my childhood home in Pennsylvania, including an old stone house, a string of greenhouses, rows of fruit trees, open land for seasonal crops, and a fish pond with frogs. The seasons came and went, bringing their own drama to this bit of property. Boredom did not exist.
I considered myself an artist from the very start. Crayola crayons, with their pure points of color in a box of “48”, were such a delight, I hardly wanted to mar their perfection. Yet, they quickly became stubs with my energetic explorations on paper.
I soaked in all that my acre provided: From the twisting entanglements of the trumpet vine, the bared branches of the maples, the radiance of yellows and oranges in October, the etchings of frost on the windowpanes; to the chilling monotones of the January air.
I packed up these memories with my bags when I officially left home at age twenty-two, newly married, and followed my husband to California, which became my home. It still is.. My acre expanded beyond the horizon, and my fish pond became the size of an ocean.
