The Vitex

8" x 8" oil on canvas

This is a vitex that was planted in my gardening phase years ago. Now it's at least twenty feet tall and blooming profusely in the back yard. I'm going to plant another one soon. Reese promised me I could. He promised because his heart was full. His heart was full because I was his passenger on the back of his "new" 1994 Honda v-twin 1100 motorcycle for a trip to the country. He couldn't have been any happier. We were driving past a mimosa tree in bloom on the road somewhere between 290 at the Mueschke exit and White Hall, Texas. White Hall is really just a run down corner store with a very pleasant, nice lady who works the register and a dirty filthy restroom. As we were riding, I saw the mimosa tree blooming in the forest. I leaned forward to yell in Reese's ear that that's what I wanted to plant in the front yard, a mimosa tree, and wasn't it pretty? "You could ask me for anything right now and I'd give it to you," he hollered back.

On the road 

Here we were on the open road, driving past donkeys, horses, llamas, goats, emus, great danes, chickens, farm houses, ranch land and forest, and all I could think to ask for spur of the moment was a tree. He extended the offer a few hours and still all I could think of was trees. So I'm getting a mimosa tree, another vitex, and a gardenia, and a hydrangea, and maybe a pine tree. I love pine trees.

If there's ever a next time, maybe I'll remember to ask for something a little more romantic, like a trip to Paris.