When I sit in my bedroom and look out my window, I see my neighbors’ houses. I see the grey, faded road and my looping driveway. I see the garden, overgrown and neglected. I see three trees: two crepe myrtles and one pink magnolia. If they are home, I see my neighbors’ cars parked outside.

The physical view remains ever the same. I have lived in the same house for almost nine years, and very little has changed in that time. The same trees surround the brown brick houses. The same neighbors live in those dulled houses that line the lonely street. Some of the kids have grown older, some of the elderly and sick have passed away. Some new flowers have been planted. Nothing remarkable has occurred, though. My mother’s daily clients, who bring their dogs to her home grooming business, have blended together in a blur of tired faces. The same absentminded mother of three brings the same Shih Tzu pup in the same Honda Civic. And each winter is just as frozen and uneventful as the last. Every summer blazes hot and lonely as before.

As unlovely and unchanging as this little street is, the only thing I would change about what I see is the pink magnolia tree. It is a charming tree, with its curved grey trunk and gothic branches. It blooms only once a year, in early spring. If I could change it, I would have it bloom every day of the year, endlessly. When I look outside, the landscape would be daubed with pink and white. Petals would fall in a continual shower, swirling in the lightest of breezes. Each day would be more beautiful than the last.

I would change this view, not because my physical world needs more beauty, but because my heart needs it. I have endured more emotional pains than I care to remember. The pink magnolias, however, remind me that beauty and love still exists even when I suffer from heartache. I don’t want that beauty to be fleeting. That is why I would change it—to remind myself every day that there is something lovely in my unlovely world.