I'll Believe It When I See It...
But Sometimes I Can't Believe My Eyes
Our house sits on a wide and shallow lot. The backyard faces due east, the front, the west. Across the street, the neighbors have a tall, dense hedge, probably fifteen to twenty feet high. It’s been there for years, and creates a solid wall of green that parallels the street and the width of our house.
Recently, we had a new roof installed. The first workers started removing the old roof at seven am. They started at the south end, then pulled large drop cloths loaded with old shingles across the width of the house to the north end, where they dropped them from the roof of the garage into the truck parked in the driveway.
It was noisy, of course, as the old shingles were leveraged up and the workers loudly tromped back and forth across the roof.
Looking out the kitchen window toward the west, I was surprised by the sight across the street. At this early hour, the bright summer sun cast crisp shadows of the workers on the hedge across the street.
There they were, almost full-size shadows shown in remarkable detail, walking back and forth dragging their loads. Their steps on the hedge matched the thumps above me. It was like was watching an old-time, almost silent movie, shown in black and green, not black and white.
It made me smile to acknowledge the creation of this scene by the mighty sun rising in the sky.
And I imagined a child, believing the shadows to be real creatures, wondering where they went when they suddenly vanished, confidently walking off the far end of the hedge.