The House that Built Me: The Yard

It's that time of year when I start aching to be outdoors more. Here in the tropical Sunshine State, I experience the phenomenon of "Reverse Hibernation." Everyone know that bears and people who live in climates with the traditional four seasons spend their Winters sealed in their snug dens. Down here, it's the (six-month) Summer that traps us indoors, windows closed, shades drawn, in an attempt to escape the majority of the extreme and uncomfortable weather. Last weekend though, we had a cool front (read: it was 80) and since then, the air has taken on a different feel. The temperatures have rebounded back to the upper 80s, but the air is no longer weighty and oppressive. I can feel it trying to become beautiful again and that makes me hungry for its arrival, so I can fling open my windows and play out in the sunshine without melting into a messy puddle of goo.

I started thinking about the yard at Gram's and Gramp's house. I spent my fair share of time outside as a child, and their yard was the ideal place to be.

There was the perfect combination of open, sunny space and big old shade trees.

The grass was as soft and cool as satin on bare Summer feet. The yard filled with deliciously crunchy Autumn leaves and delightful drifts of snow to climb during the Winter. There were lovingly tended flowerbeds and fantastic places to hide.

All manner of rocks, perfect for climbing, sitting on, leaping off and one perfectly flat rock, covered with lichens, that made a great place for watching puffy clouds form shapes on lazy afternoons, especially when it was sun-warmed.

It seemed each area of the yard had its own personality, constructed by its unique inhabitants. The front yard had a blue spruce, with its silvery sharp needles; two white birch trees, which remain my favorite trees to this day; an ash tree at the corner of the driveway; and two tall evergreens, standing like sentinels on guard in front of the house. The south side of the yard had several ash trees along the property line, an enormous rhododendron bush,

and two snowball bushes that were in perfect view, across the driveway, from the windows over the kitchen sink.

The immediate backyard, which lay between the house and the orchard,

had the garage; some forsythia; a crotchety old Red Delicious apple tree that Gramp threatened on more than one occasion; some lilac bushes; two stately evergreens; a Tamarack tree, with the tiniest, softest needles ever, like stroking kitten fur; two maple trees (one came down after Hurricane Gloria came through, the year I was in fourth grade); a beech tree that my brother abused regularly with a yellow plastic wiffle ball bat; and this creepy burned-out old stump from a tree that had been struck by lightning long before I had been born. The north side of the yard had a line of evergreens--different from the other varieties--separating our yard from the neighbor's, and this wonderful Japanese red maple that was a fiery rich red, and rivaled those white birches for the position of being my favorite.


The flowerbeds changed their fashion statement from season to season, and year to year. Gram loved roses and daffodils, tulips and chrysanthemums. There were bluebells and violets and snowdrops and black-eyed Susans. Tiger lilies and johnny-jump-ups and potted geraniums. The yard laughed and sang for joy, color popping everywhere, under her experienced eye and her green thumb. Everywhere you looked, flowers greeted you cheerfully, except in the cold of Winter.


I couldn't get enough of being out in the yard. There were games to play and imaginary adventures to weave. I reveled in the change of seasons, even before I could appreciate that some places didn't know their wonder.

All Summer long, I would chafe to get out of the house, early as Gram would release me, running my bare feet through the dew-drenched lawn. I would hot-foot across the driveway in the heat of the midday, cooling my feet in the grass on the other side. I would lie back on its plush green and stare up at the blue sky. My brother and I would improvise a game of "volleyball", over Gram's clothesline--more fun when a sheet blew in the Summer breeze between us, until Gram would chase us away from her clean laundry, and then we would drive her equally crazy playing dodge ball off the side of the house. (How we never broke a window, I'll never know.)

With Autumn came waiting at the foot of the driveway for the school bus, under the fire of the foliage.

The lawn turned beige, the Summer flowers gave way to their more hardy cousins, and I gleefully shuffled through the yard, upsetting the piles of leaves my grandparents had spent the better part of their days raking--you remember all those trees I described, right?--for the purpose of my delight and pleasure of course! (Ha. They just exchanged a glance up in Heaven over that one. I know it.)

There was nothing better than the brisk wind to rosy my cheeks, as I whirled around the yard, invigorated after the chill drove away the lazy heat of Summer. To this day, I will seek out whatever minuscule pile of dry leaves that may exist, purely to relive that satisfying crunch under my shoes.


Autumn marched into Winter, out in the yard. Some years, the yard stayed sullen and brown, alternating between frozen hard and a muddy mess when dreary rains chose to fall from lead grey skies. But the best years brought a yard glittering with snowfall.

I knew all the places the drifts would be deepest. On snow days, on weekends, in the sparse minutes of remaining daylight after school, Gram would fruitlessly attempt to keep me inside the warmth of the house, but I would insist on bundling up anyway, clomping out into the dazzling snow glare to tumble down snow banks and run in slow-motion as I broke through the crust into the powder beneath. The sharp air would steal away my breath and make my eyes water, but still I would leave my foot trail all around the yard, only coming in when I could no longer feel my extremities, my red face smarting from the shock of the heated kitchen. And then I would press my face eagerly to the window, watching the Christmas lights glow on the backyard evergreens and waiting for the next snowfall to provide me with a fresh canvas.

And then it would be Spring again. Tiny grey-green buds on the branches of the trees. Slivers of grass pressing out of the matted brown. Before I knew it, overnight it seemed, there would be green everywhere again.

The freedom of running through the yard wearing only a light layer made me feel like a colt freed from its stall. I would shout to my brother from the opposite end of the yard. The first whine of a lawnmower would carry on the breeze. Chasing hummingbirds and butterflies from blossom to blossom. Spotting the first fat bumblebee. The whole world appeared to be alive from the vantage point of Gram's yard. And it would all begin again. I knew no season that wasn't perfect for being out in that yard.

The backyard saw a screened gazebo, perfect for Summer lunches. It hosted family reunions and dried loads of laundry with the outdoor freshness that only sunshine and breeze can truly achieve. It was the place for play and for chores. We would shell sweet peas and grill hamburgers. We would rake and shovel and stay out of the way of the grown-ups mowing. We played alone, we played together, we argued, as only siblings can, and then the yard was big enough to cool off separately, until it was time for some new game. That yard knew wiffle balls and tennis balls and plastic playground balls. It endured our feet and our bikes and the flop of our young bodies onto the ground. It was, quite frankly, the best yard I've ever seen.