Spring Cleaning My Yard...And My Attitude

Yesterday the sun shone, for the last time this week according to the weatherman, so I charged my electric chair (OK-"battery-powered wheelchair"...but "electric chair" sounds less old fogey); gathered the troops (Katie and Hailey); accumulated rakes, giant black plastic trash bags and clippers; and zipped out to the front yard for some spring cleaning.

The view from my front window is one of the ugliest in town: combines, tractors, rusted machinery and trees choked by sumac vines in the lot across the street. But I love my east-facing front yard. Especially in spring. I enjoy cutting back the fountain grasses to make room for fresh growth. I get pleasure from raking the dead leaves out of my flower beds, smelling the moist dirt beneath, finding daisies sprouting in unexpected places. Every year two lone tulips and a purple hyacinth bloom, though I didn't plant them. Last fall I salvaged one stick from a neighbor's overlooked lilac bush and transplanted it in one of my raised "holding beds" just around the southeast corner of the house, unsure if it would survive my inexperience. It not only developed green leaves, but one bunch of lilac buds promises to bloom under my bedroom window in the next month.

The holding beds contain an odd assortment of plants waiting for the day I officially landscape my yard, something I've been intending to do for years now. I don't recall everything I've placed in the beds and anticipate the surprise I'll feel when I find the first green of the forgotten plants.

As I write this, I realize that my yard reflects my life. I had great plans for it, but those plans have yet to be realized...if ever. I expected to plant fescue and spread a weed-killing fertilizer every year for the manicured effect. But if I had done that, I would have lost the opportunity to enjoy the wild grape hyacinths and the white clover flowers that bloom in scattered patches. I mapped out flower beds with grand arches and a specific arrangement of annuals, perennials and grasses. In the same way I planned a life based around a healthy body and children, never even considering rheumatoid arthritis, blissfully unaware of "Dandy-Walker." Reality rerouted all of those plans. I used to resent that. Some days I still do.

But yesterday I understood that different plans had been made for me and I glimpsed their beauty. For a moment I felt thankful for an imperfect lawn, for my unrealized dreams. Because I felt less attachment to a certain outcome, I appreciated Katie's and Hailey's sometimes silly contributions. Since flowers bloomed wildly in my yard instead of fescue, I've received at least a dozen bouquets already, delivered by grubby Hannah hands as well as by young ladies simultaneously desiring their mother's approval and detachment. In the same way arthritis and Dandy-Walker have given me a different perspective, a strangely pretty one.

This isn't the yard I've planned. This isn't the life I've planned. But if I look closely and cultivate gratitude, I find an unanticipated magnificence in it's plainness.