Backyard

It was the the warmest day of the year thus far, and I have to admit, feeling warmth while seeing bare limbs on the trees was quite the juxtaposition. But nevertheless, I threw on a dress and walked around my yard barefoot, smelling the newly thawed damp grass squish around my toes. I knelt down the the ground where the violets grew amongst the short grass and gently parted the blades to see their roots wrap around the crumbly warm earth. The daffodils pressed up high above the dead leaves on the ground, and stretched up and out to mimic the sun. The lilac bushes just began to remember how to burst out leaves, perhaps in May's they'll bloom. We have three Lilac bushes in the yard: an asian lilac bush which is more condensed with small leaves and small light violet blooms but they do not smell as fragrant, and two larger bushes with big leaves and darker flowers which are much more fragrant.

I could tell you all about my back yard. I could tell you about how no matter how many times I climb the blue spruce tree, sap still gets on my fingers, soon, ants will be crawling up and down the flaky bark. I could tell you how after the lilacs bloom the orange tiger lillies will soon follow, how the butterfly bush doesn't attract as many butterflies as the tag promised when we bought it, and the catnip plant really does drug up my cat. I could tell you where we buried the baby bunnies Megan caught, her 2 kittens, and beloved Megan last fall. I could tell you where the ferns will pop up, and that there are these bushes with thick leaves that you can peel away the skin to reveal a squishy juicy interior, and if you work at enough, you can delicately scrape away the green to make the skin of the leave transparent. I know that clovers and moss gross on the shady side of the yard and I could tell you how to make chains and necklaces from the little white clover flowers the way you make daisy chains by splitting the stems and linking them together. How rhododendron bushes look straggly and weird 11 months out of the year when they are not in bloom, and how to walk barefoot on pine needles without hurting your feet. I could tell you that we killed a sick birch tree near the house and dug out the stump and used the whole thing for firewood and you would never guess a tree stood in that spot at one point. How the grape vines we planted were supposed to provide delicious wine-making grapes by now but they are awful... the currant berries are tasty, though too bitter to make a juice. I tried once, and I realized why you don't see currant berry juice at the grocery store. I could tell you which trees the caterpillars like, and where the owl nest is across the street. All of these things that would be insignificant to anyone else, but I loved my backyard.

When I was little I played a game with myself called "Backyard" in which there were little people- a girl and boy who traveled by soaring on a leaf from their town of Gellyndale in the clover patch to the Pine Tree, but when the wind carried them there the Pine needles cut up the leaf to shreds and they were trapped in the sap mining camp of the ants and forced to work. There were no leaves to soar away on in the Pine Tree... only needles and twigs. Finally, after weeks of slave labor, they escaped to the base of the tree and found that the pill bugs and beetles would take them through the Wild Grass Forest of the yard. But of course, the Wild Grass Forest was a terrifying place that no one of their town of Gellyndale had ever ventured and certainly it was too dangerous for children. It would take weeks to cross, and they would be out in the open to be attacked by birds and worms, and worst of all, once a week the lawnmower came, and cut the canopy down low, and all were at the mercy of its wrath. They crossed the mighty forest after much danger and peril and finally arrived at their destination, the Great Maple in the center of the yard. They climbed up to the top and it was a city of little people like them... the metropolis of the yard. When word spread that they had come from the Wild Grass Forest, the Queen sent for them and took them to the highest leaf of the tree and from this top they could see over the fence for the first time and saw the hundreds of other yards one after the other spread in all directions and understood how small they were, but also how much wonderful world there was left to explore. The Queen, cut the leaf from the tree, and let the boy and girl catch the wind back to Gellyndale to share with the town their adventures.

The cool thing about when I played a game, like this one for example, is that I LIVED the game... I made up the town in the clovers as I layed down and stared at them, I took a leaf from the bush above the clovers, flew it to the pine tree, and cut it up to shreds in the pine needles. When the girl and boy spent 2 weeks in the pine tree, so did I... the game lasted about 2 months. And it wasn't just a game it was a story. I've made up hundreds of stories, and played out most of them. I wish I could get by with that now.... walking around the yard holding a leaf and ripping it against pine needles, spending 2 weeks in a pine tree or staring at clover patches. But people would think I'm crazy now wouldn't they?

I guess I'm so nostalgic about my backyard because I know this will be the last spring and summer I have with it. The plants and creatures and seasonal routine I have memorized by sight, smell, touch taste, and sound will just melt into my memory along with Hong Kong. And the yard will belong to someone else who may or may not appreciate it the way I did.

Laurel

So now that I have built my house, I suppose I should fill it with sschtuff!

I've been awake since 5 A.M. this morning... I woke up during the rolling end of a thunderstorm,. uncomfortable, achy, and somehow sad. Perhaps my dreams left me stranded with melancholy emotions that they didn't know how to deal with. I spent the past three hours trying to come up with a design and concept for a new blog. This will be the fourth blog I've started. The other three had specific themes because those are the types of blogs people like to read. But the fact is that I'm scatterbrained... my thoughts bounce around like gummy bears and one moment I want to write about this then post pictures about that. So this is a sanctuary from trying to write what other people want me to write and this is just a place for me to babble my head off if I so wish.

If you are curious as to the title of the blog... I wanted a title that was in reference to my name, but but not too obvious; intelligent, but simple. So here were my thought streams...

My name is Laura.
It means "Crowned with laurel leaves"
Romans crowned their victors with these leaves
Poet Laureates...
Petrarch was a poet and his muse was a woman named "Laura".
I want to do something related to laurel leaves for with historical and literary significance
I want it to be simple
Another term for a laurel leaf is a bay leaf
Bay Leaves... you cook with bay leaves, I like to cook
Do something with Bay Leaves.
_______ of Bay Leaves
House of Leaves.... House of Bay leaves...
House of Bay Leaves.

So there you have it. I don't know if other people's minds work like that... swinging from thought to thought by clinging onto obscure references for branches.

I'm tired. The birds are chirping and it's daylight... such an unnatural time to sleep. So I will be unnatural.