Jacaranda Trees

Someday I’ll have a house, and that house will be situated on a street lined in lavender jacarandas that rain little purple flowers in the spring. I'm even prepared to plant these trees myself, grow them painstakingly, because that will give me more to brag about over wine and cheese when the Peace Corps is a cocktail story—I’ll get sauced and make up stories about how I single handedly built hospitals or saved little baby kittens; Sensational stories on the cusp of implausibility that an average American will feel too stupid to question because after all, I was in the Peace Corps which makes me honest and good by default.
In my mind's eye my street looks similar to one of the highly stylized Chinese kung fu movies of late. I will have a terrace and a balcony and they'll be swallowed by ancient, thick purple bougainvillea. I will take afternoon walks through the lazy tarred lanes that are feathered with felled purple flowers. My children will take for granted the pink light bleeding through the canopy of blooming trees; the dog's only want will be to pee on yellow hydrants and scratch up grass over where he's urinated but I'll walk in quiet contentment under the smoggy LA sky and think of the beginning of the rains; I'll think of Botswana's "springtime" and all the things I took for granted back then (now), when my moods matched the sky's. Under a purple canopy, memories will become beautiful and tinged with a different colored light. I won't be able to see as clearly, but what I will be able to make out will look be a lovely misty purple, not bachelors’ button blue. I'll remember how I spoke choppy Setswana, and how much all of the children loved me (mostly, they're just unafraid). I'll laugh about the frustrations and remember how I called strangers mother or father as a sign of respect, how I hitch hiked here and there with little worry about my safety. I'll miss those things and I'll think of muted thunder clapping, of waiting for prolonged promises of rain. I'll think of the quiet taps on my tin rooftop, then of the rain like timpani drums and the thunder like cymbals; I'll remember the music of a deaf composer pouring on my rooftop.
When I immediately get home I’m sure the problems that seem so insurmountable today will seem less so because hindsight blurs the edges, the details, the feelings that small details engender. I’ll beat myself up for not breaking the tasks apart into smaller pieces and approaching them bit by bit. Gradually, hindsight’s keen vision will blur into memory and fade into nostalgia and I’ll remember Tebogo and Olebile’s birthday parties, or building a garden with Kamogelo, Aerobics Club practice, and watching soapies at Neo’s house. But today, I am in Pitsane and the pans are dry. Its been overcast for the past week and that brings hope for rain, but sometimes the clouds are plain empty, other times the rain just passes us by. The upside is that dolor hued skies look pretty when lit with jacaranda blossoms and that memory will stick to me harder than the names or faces of people who don't show up to VMSAC meetings, the counterparts, or the ladies who call me fat, and for that I am gratefu