The Garden

An Owl Haunts my garden – The backyard garden is a tangle of trees, weeds, flowers, dying plants and gnarled limbs intersecting. There is a lot to unravel if one ever thought to attempt an intervention there would be lots of cutting, the sound of saws buzzing and things breaking.

You can put it off as long as you want. Unfortunately, the trees will inevitably destroy the roof and the foundation. One can only hide the chaos for so long, if you have an HOA-you get letters, you have to pay fines or you have kind neighbors helping to thin out the forest that is your backyard.

I have almost forgotten the feeling where the sense of well-being dissolves, replaced by a feeling of responsibility and burden. The realization that the bits of pruning you’ve done is not working becomes the question: do we get a professional or do we just crawl into ourselves, ignoring the damage.

I could never imagine having heart surgery could be a welcome diversion from the state of which I’ve fought for many summers. A break from the garden, from maintaining the weeds, digging for peace in a chaotic place.

My moments at home recently, have been listening to the small flock of sparrows chatter. They love my little forest, so do the crows and the rodents that find the bird seed irresistible.

More threats of damage, more things to lose but I’ve surrendered to a feeling of well-being. I wake up every morning, I listen to the birds. I can even pick out the sounds of individual species, it’s like a treat to the senses.

Thought I might be able to get off the medication that has added to the long list of medication I am taking so I don’t have a heart attack or stroke. The idea that I could experience a sense of joy that would last beyond summer and autumn where the threatening trees would be dormant, stand down to the worn-out roof, give me just a winter to ponder the next step in my journey to keep my garden in check.

The continued songs of the birds have filled me with music. I sit with the dog, we listen, we take every moment as if it weren’t a given. I feel present, alive.

One of the hardest things, I imagine, for someone going back to prison, would be having something amazing to compare the solitude and separation to. My feeling of well-being is slowly dissolving, replaced by the same anxious notes of damage.

I notice the garden is getting darker, more entangled with vines and debri. As I begin to assess the damage suddenly instead of enjoying the silence and the feeling of sunlight on my face, I’m starting to feel the burden of responsibility. 

The costs are mailed daily, both electronically and in the mailbox-my home is sinking into this dark state. I know the feeling of helplessness, watching family try and save the house you’ve invested and all you can see is the damage.

Before I ignored the feeling, but now it seems to be destroying my serenity. I heard an owl last night, it replaced the melodic sound of the sparrow. From a dead tree that stands against the ruins of a shed, it finds me. 

It’s coo is silent at first but it persists. I am haunted as it moves about the yard. It exists in the shadows, birds disperse and I am left in a garden. Just me, a voice I can’t find to describe the loss of well-being and an owl that keeps calling.

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