The Backyard of a Sentimental Twenty-Something

I was born into this house. Almost everything of consequence in my existence has happened here. Of course there were the four years I spent at college, and an eleven-month stint in suburban Russia, but on the whole, my memories are here, and of this place.

When I was a child, I used to get lost in my backyard. It was a forest, big enough to hide a kids' playhouse and a teepee and a fire-pit and certainly a three-year-old. Sometimes I even got lost. Almost.

Our backdoor neighbor lived on the other side of this woods, and it was an expedition for my brother and I to make our way through the overgrowth and to his rock-hewn steps. We were always greeted by a dark, smoky atmosphere and a big black dog. Perhaps it doesn't seem like a place where children would go to spend time, but reliably there was juice in the refrigerator and candy in the glass dish, and a loud retired teacher with a lot of opinions and love in his heart. On the occasions when my family would have a campfire in our backyard, he would see the orange light and invite himself into our company, with his dog running ahead to greet us. If he passed by our house on a daytime walk, my brother and I were welcome to join him. He was a mushroom and berry expert, and voted in every election. He died seventeen months ago.

In our backyard, we had a large wooden deck for many years. It was connected by stairs to an upper deck, with a sliding door into our house. A stony pathway shot straight between the lower deck and a fenced-in area with an old swing set. We used to have parties and get-togethers out there, with deck furniture and an old steely windchime warning that a breeze was about to blow the paper plates away. The mosquitoes were tenacious and the forest was thick, and we left the doors open.

I don't know when everything changed, and perhaps I didn't notice for a long time.

There are old woodpiles now from fallen trees, and the newer growth is mid-height and weedy. The large deck got old and became an uneven stone patio. The kids' playhouse is unused, and in 2010 a second fire-pit was made closer to the house for convenience, and the circle of benches by the old one is dilapidated.

My backdoor neighbor's house is no longer a trek away. The trees behind his house have been cleared and his old steps are easily visible. The forest is past its prime, like a faded memory.

It all could be redone. Certainly we could tear out the remaining tired trees and roll out carpets of grass. The fence could come out and all the leaves be cleared away.

But there is something fierce that lives on in the old wood. It would be the tidy and right thing to put money into making it pretty, but our memories are not always tidy and right, and they cling to the ghost of the forest that was. They demand a sacred space to exist, to call home. They breathe the old mystery of the place where the teepee was made and the fires were had. They tell me to close my eyes, and get lost.