18x24x1.5
Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas
Black painted sides
WHERE THE TREES DREAM IN COLOR
(As told by Coralee from the cottage with the crooked blue door.)
I have lived on this lane longer than anyone else, though no one keeps proper track. Time has a softer presence here.
They call our little bend in the village “Where Trees Dream in Color,” and honestly, I don’t know who first said it. Probably one of the children. But once the name caught on, it just fit. The way a nickname sometimes feels more like the truth than the one you were born with.
Every evening, right around the time dinner starts to simmer and the last sparrow settles down, the trees begin their show. Their leaves pick up colors that don’t belong to any season, peachy orange, pear yellow, even little squares of lavender, like someone's memory turned solid. They shimmer in the wind like they’re remembering something lovely.
My neighbor Junie says it’s a trick of the light. Wendel insists it’s pollen. But I have lived here long enough to know: it’s something quieter than science, something gentler than magic.
Maybe the trees are simply reflecting us, our hopes, our little joys, our griefs softened by time. Or maybe they’re dreaming their own dreams, and we’re just lucky enough to live beneath them.
My cottage leans a little, like it’s listening. I painted the door blue years ago because I wanted it to feel like walking into the sky. The path outside is never quite the same shade two days in a row, and I have stopped trying to sweep away the golden flecks. They seem to belong here more than dust ever did.
If you ever visit, don’t come looking for a spectacle. You’ll miss it. Just walk a little slower. Breathe a little deeper. And look up when the light begins to shift.
That’s when you’ll see it.
This isn’t a place that shouts.
It hums from somewhere past the horizon.
And if you stay long enough, you’ll start to hum too.