I am not a Mower

   There is a lot to say about how our lives have changed since the fire. The one thing that I have focused on has been the yard. The front yard was just empty and sterile after we moved back. Today it would seem to any passing motorist that I am trying to make the house disappear. There is what can only be called "a lot" of green. I think  that after losing so much of my privacy and feeling so vulnerable that maybe I am seeking refuge now behind wood and leaf.
    When I purchased the house I did so because of the big back yard. I thought of the hours that my boys would spend out there. They have too. There have been ballgames and potato wars and sword fights.  The back yard has become a shelter for one of the kids. A place where he can be surrounded by the woods and become lost in his thoughts. I still mow part of the backyard, but since moving home and seeing how the woods grew without our constant mowing and care, I have given up the weed eater for good. The hill on the right side of our property no longer runs brown when it rains. The bushes have grown up and erosion is no longer a problem. The woods have left the back 8 feet of our property and have crawled down the right hand side of the property. Perhaps soon I will no longer look up and  see the neighbor's house.
    Michael still has his fruit trees, his blackberries, and his grapes. What I now have includes bunnies, frogs, and an assortment of birds. I also have the funniest caterpillars that I have ever seen. Letting part of the woods go wild means that I can hear birds even in the dead of night. I can see all sorts of spiders and bugs. The fireflies  have a dark place where they can seek out mates. I even saw a groundhog in the neighbor's yard and I am taking full credit for that. Lynn Cherry taught me that if you do nothing more than put a hula hoop out in your yard and refuse to mow that small space you will see lots of bugs and may be lucky enough to get a new variety of plant. I have a dogwood that I didn't have to buy. I have lilies that I didn't have to buy.
   Even though we live in town there are moments when I can forget. I can forget about a lot. Nature heals.