Suburbia has its own rules: well manicured lawns, Christmas lights and all the hedges two inches under the window and neatly cut with square corners. To not have a tidy yard, a house sticks out and so today I tried to give my own yard some semblance of order. Though it is weird because nature isn't tidy. I've never seen virgin forest where the leaves are in neat manageable piles that are eventually carted away. For that matter, what virgin forest is cut down to make places for piles of suburban leaves that suburbanites have carted away?
It seems a pointless exercise when looked at from nature's viewpoint. If we were all killed tomorrow, if a huge asteroid hit the earth, nature would once again take over the well manicured plots of land. The acorns and the spontaneous saplings abhorred by every suburbanite would grow unencumbered. Our well tended roses would grow in a jumble of vines like in Sleeping Beauty. Before you know it the shells of our homes would be lands of lichen, trees and small animals, assuming some of them survived. We are but one disaster away from a virgin forest. All we work for in this life is truly for not because when we are no longer here asphalt gives way to roots and branches.
Okay, maybe that is depressing but the only reason we rake and tend to our yard is because of neatness and more so for prestige. If every leaf is gone, if no weeds grow here and if the gravel is cleaned of all rubbish like dirt, leaves and sticks, then one will look better and richer. Then there is my particular little suburban oasis. It doesn't look perfect, the ground isn't manicured to a fault. There are leaves and our oaks are in dire need of trimming. Our gutters are full of leaves and we have more then the odd leaf blowing across our yard. Though I have in recent years tried to have some semblance of order in my yard due to angry letters from the Home Owner's Association when the neighbors can't abide my untidiness.
It just seems to me that time could be better spent doing anything but raking leaves and mowing. Personally, I love to sit in the cast iron chairs on the porch with a cup of tea and watch the many birds that flit from tree to lilacs, to ground and back to trees. Their colors and markings are so varied and beautiful. When it rains the little sparrows puffs out their mighty little chests fluffing their feathers I guess to dry themselves. I would have never witnessed this display if I always looked to clean the untidy. I also wouldn't know the ginger cat that creeps over the fence, jumping from the wood pile to our ground. He walks across our yard planting his very large behind on our porch where he suns himself before moving on. And when all the animals have done their walking and flitting, I sit with my face against the breeze and hear the wind blowing against the many trees almost roaring as the tree limbs thrash and shudder from being blown. Why would I want to tidy the leaves? How perfect the flower, the weed and the wind in this oasis. Humans worry too much about things that really don't matter. I may rake a few leaves this day but in the end I know it is a pointless practice because nature in its wildness is perfect already.
No comments:
Post a Comment