Watertown Window Boxes

For those of you not living and/or working in Watertown, Massachusetts, USA, my office is situated on Mount Auburn Street, a major thoroughfare for Watertown, running from Cambridge's famous Harvard Square all the way into the heart of Watertown Square. It's a quintessential American boulevard, meandering through wealthy Cambridge streets lined with mansions and fabulous, manicured gardens, past commercial zones littered with gas stations, supermarkets and local bars and VFW's, on into Watertown. Mount Auburn Street's Watertown beginnings are flavored with fabulous local grocery stores such as Kay's, friendly non-corporate coffee shops like Uncommon Grounds, wonderful local markets filled with fascinating foodstuffs and produce from all over the Mediterranean and beyond. Where else can you buy a set of tiny black and white polka dotted espresso cups hanging on their own delightful cast iron stand for under ten bucks!

Sometimes, when I am in between patients, I open the curtains and sit and watch the world walk by my window: Mothers with strollers and children chattering nineteen to the dozen; shambling men and women, talking to themselves and anybody who will listen to them, on day release from what I assume to be local assisted living facilities; groups of handsome, olive-skinned men talking animatedly in languages that I don't speak (I have rusty French and German, which have had years of dis-use) heading over to Starbucks for their morning/afternoon or evening coffee klatsches; gaggles of giggling schoolgirls, with low-slung jeans and high-strung belly shirts, proudly strutting their stuff; the whoosh of skateboards passing the window in a blur and Watertown seniors who appear to be in slow-motion alongside the hustle and bustle of the rest of the good citizens.

In the first year or so that I had this office, I proudly tended my window boxes. Beginning in early spring, I would plant them carefully. My name, phone number and credentials are on the window in Periwinkle Blue, so I chose flowers to complement the lettering: bright blue, lavender, fuschia and purple. Even with the curtains closed, I could see silhouettes of the dainty flowers waving in the breeze, splattering their fronds and shadows across the curtains. The flowers provoked constant comment from the other side of the window. Enthusiastic toddlers frequently tried to pick a flower, while their mothers, bracing for a tantrum, would try to entice them away from the window boxes: senior citizens on their slow stroll past my office, would often comment on the beautiful flowers; others, noticing the flowers, would then pass comment on the fact that there was a therapy office there that they'd never seen before and adolescent girls and boys alike would talk about my name ("Oooooooh! Do you think she's any relation to Justin?"). I could hear all this from the other side of the window.

Then the vandals struck.

I turned up at my office late last summer and somebody had ripped out all the flowers and left them, roots floundering, baking in the hot sun. Heart-sick, I tried to save some of them, but they could not be revived. I couldn't decide what to do. Plant more and risk them being vandalized also? Wait a while and then re-plant? I chose the latter. When October came, I planted Icicle Pansies, hoping that they would last through the early part of winter.

Vandals struck again, this time removing only half of the pansies from each window box.

So, this summer the window boxes are empty, just dried stalks of the Icicle Pansies remain and I haven't had the heart to put flowers in. I miss the attention and joy they attracted, and the color and beauty they provided for myself and others walking by my office. It's nearly the end of July, and I'm still trying to decide whether to risk planting flowers there. With my office situated in a commercially dense part of Mount Auburn Street, and therefore little landscaping, it was sweetly delightful to approach my office building in the morning, with the well-tended window boxes. The gay blossoms provided a colorful, optimistic counterpoint to the tarmac roads and concrete sidewalks. I may have to succumb and plant more.