Now is the Winter of Our Discontent

Well, as always happens after I visit someone whose backyard is filled with space and trees, I have become seriously jealous of those who are not crammed into expensive subdivisions made more for profit than for human living. Now I really hate to be jealous. It's not an emotion or a quality I aspire to, yet I find myself feeling it all the time because as I noted before to Lilith, it's hard not to compare yourself to your own idea of perfection. This is true in writing, in the arts, and in life.

Still, I got up this morning and looked out my back porch at the little "woods" we DO have, and I was truly thankful for the summer birds and squirrels. The squirrels have learned to raid our porch supply of seed, climbing into the plastic bin by first nibbling a hole in the cover, removing the cover, and diving right in. We have had to relocate the bins back into the kitchen, but that has not stopped the squirrels from foraging through the pots of "plants" on our deck. What smart little creatures they are, and so full of mischief! I do wish, however, they would clean up after themselves, especially after they dump potting soil all over the deck.

But even while I am extremely grateful for everything we have including our squirrels, what makes me most jealous is beauty--beauty in the natural world, and to a point (only to a point) physical, bodily beauty. I go back and forth on envying bodily beauty because my concept of what is beautiful changes so often, and I do not wish at all to be beautiful in the commercial sense. I do wish I were healthier and thinner and that all the imperfections of things like my thighs and stretch marks would disappear. But all of this is purely secondary to my love of beautiful surroundings, namely, those decorated by the natural world.

I lust for trees. Yes, I want a yard, but more than anything, I want trees, big trees, the kind the kids can climb. When the children were small, I lived in a townhouse preempted by a huge tree right in the small front yard. It was lovely. I could see it from every front window, and it reached the third level. It turned colors with the seasons and it shed it ample leaves, enough to make scarecrows from. But the best part of this place, even though it was smaller and far less assuming than this place, was that there is a trail running in back of the development. The trail rambles first behind the other town homes, and eventually, behind the tennis courts, and then into the woods alongside a stream. Across the stream parallels Bull Run Regional Park. We could engage in a forested walk whenever we wanted, and the trail went on for miles. If we walked far enough, we would end up at Splash Down, a water park on the other side of town and practically in another county.

I first discovered this trail accidentally when my brother was living with me, prior to my re-marriage. My children were away visiting my ex-husband, and I convinced my brother to walk with me and my Shiba Inu. It was rather a warm day, but it was the first time I able to venture so far without my toddler and pre-schooler, and so we walked and walked, noting the ebbs and flow of the stream, the flowers, the huge trees, him sweating and complaining, the dog stopping to sniff anything remotely interesting to her.

At one point we came upon a miniature bamboo forest. Only having lived in this area for about a year, I was surprised that bamboo could grow here. My husband and I have walked back here a few times since then, and the bamboo forest has spread. He thinks probably someone planted one or two sprouts, and the stuff has spread with the moistness of that trail.

I remember one of the first times I walked there alone while the spring flowers were blooming. I don't know what these flowers were, but they were bright yellow, and a veritable field of them. I came to them from around a corner, and the shock of seeing them all.....and it amazed me to be so amazed by sudden yellow flowers.

That is when I decided the best place to live would be in a home with trees, but a home that backed up to a park that would never be developed. I would not have to maintain the trails (not really in the scope of my talents or budget) but I could traipse through the woods regularly and bathe in all that nature has to offer those of us who require beauty. In the meantime, I am sure I will have to be jealous.

Some summer or winter, I will be able to drop my jealousy and it will all seem like a stupid period of time in my life, one wasted with thoughts of "never." Until then, I do love my squirrels, and I remember a time when the woods were so at my fingertips, I felt like I could breathe.