Beyond My Pitiful Yard

 
Last summer, I had to move from my lovely home to a small rental house. Which sucked.

Okay, I guess it doesn’t suck that I have less to maintain where I live now. That is a benefit since I know so little about home maintenance and have so little interest in learning. And I suppose there are some other positives about my new place. I am trying to look at the bright side in all this.

But moving still sucked.

I have been blessed (thanks to my ex-husband’s hard work, which I give him full credit for) to live in some very nice homes in very nice environments. Our house in New Jersey was in a neighborhood called Sturbridge Woods – literally, in the woods. It was so lovely. Our house in Sioux City was on the very south edge of town and the window in the great room looked out on a grassy valley – I mean, the view was GORGEOUS, people. And the house I just moved out of here in San Antonio had a walled-in courtyard in front with a fountain, shaded with beautiful live oak trees. It was amazing.

I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed those beautiful places until I moved where I am now. Here, I have . . . a yard. It has grass . . . well, some of it is grass. The lawn is mostly weeds. There’s one tree in the back that is literally breaking through the fence. When we first moved in over the summer, it was difficult to go through the front or back yards without picking up sticker burrs on your shoes and socks.

No deck or porch of any kind. My lawn furniture is sitting on the ground amongst the weeds and doesn’t get used much. Nothing even resembling “landscaping”.  It’s a pretty blah yard.

However . . .

If you walk around the north side of the house to the back, a short jaunt gets you to the Huesta Creek Greenway, a paved bike path that connects with greenways all over the city. And running off of the bike path are several dirt paths also frequented by bikes and runners and dog walkers . . . and now by me.

Friends, it’s gorgeous. Even in the middle of winter. The pictures I’ve posted here from my phone don’t do it justice; I feel like I'm exploring Narnia with the Pevensie kids and a faun or dwarf will be popping onto the path at some point -- or maybe even Aslan himself. It took a while for me to get the courage to venture too far on the dirt paths because there is no map to be found for the area, and I was afraid of getting lost. But I’ve been gradually exploring and finding my way, and I’ve become completely enamored of the area. Almost addicted. A day doesn’t feel right anymore without a walk through my friendly neighborhood “wilderness”.

It has also occurred to me that this new source of nature in my life has some distinct advantages over those from my past. For one thing, I don't have to maintain it or pay for it. (Hallelujah!) But more than that, I have to actually walk to get there, and there’s no place to sit. Rather than planting my increasingly ample backside in a deck chair with my computer in my lap, I am forced to stop working and move my body to experience the joy of nature now -- two things I have been desperately needing to do more of anyway.

This rental house was not my first choice. I copped a big attitude with God when my first choice fell through. But once again, He patiently shows me that His ideas are always better than mine.