This tree is from the past. It’s a tree in front of the house in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where Michelle (my wife) died in the year 2000, on or around this date. We don’t actually know the day she died, because she committed suicide and her body was only found some days later, but in recent years I’ve settled on June 25 as the anniversary of her death. In fact, I never lived in this house. Michelle and I had separated (but not divorced) and this was the house she moved into shortly after that separation. I did end up spending some time in this house, though, after her death. I spent a very intense and grim few days there, while staying in a motel, cleaning up and collecting our shared possessions and placing them into storage. I also returned to visit the house some years later, in 2009, and took this picture.
[UPDATE] It has come to my attention that this same picture, somewhat more cropped than above, was featured as Tree #282, about a year and a half ago. Rather than delete or alter this tree picture, I’ll point out that the cropping of the earlier posting of this picture clearly “chooses” the darker, denser tree on the left, near the picture’s center. So I can suggest that this time round, I’m choosing the tree on the right instead – the one closer to the street. In any event, as I said in that earlier blog-entry, Michelle’s ghost sometimes makes requests.
[daily log: walking, 2km]