Long-time readers of this blog know of my ongoing struggle with the lack of green in my life. For those of you just tuning in: we're yardless apartment dwellers in a small city with lots of concrete and glass and not nearly enough grass or trees, in my humble opinion, though I am grateful for every bit we live near.
Though I've made peace with our family's call to be where we are and do what we do, that does not mean I don't still miss (sometimes greatly) green grass and trees. In fact, if you'll pardon the pun, I sometimes literally pine for green at deep heart-levels.
From our window, we can see ten sycamore trees across the road and an asphalt parking lot from where we live. Those ten trees are sometimes a real life-line for me: I'm not sure I could survive the ongoing monotony of asphalt or the onslaught of winter gray otherwise.
For years, next to the parking lot on the nearer side to our building, there has been a strip of bright green grass. Except for the even more narrow strip by the benches beneath the sycamores, this is the largest patch of grass near us for blocks. We often park right next to it, and I'm always thankful to be able to step out of the car and onto grass, even for a moment. Visitors sometimes joke with us about it being our little bit of lawn.
Well, the grass is no more. I'm not joking when I say I feel like I'm in mourning. The folks who own the building and parking lot next door apparently got tired of having to mow that bit of grass (or so I'm assuming). They brought in a big backhoe kind of vehicle (or whatever you call the vehicle that plows up sod) and stripped it bare this weekend. I held out momentary though faint hope that they planned to re-sod it, maybe even put in a bush or two. But it became quickly apparent they had no such intention.
The concrete mixer arrived about an hour ago. As I speak, workmen are smoothing a perfectly smooth layer of concrete about twenty feet long. A new sidewalk.
And I just want it to go away. Sorry to sound so bleak -- in general, I enjoy sidewalks and even feel very grateful for them as I walk a lot in a city -- but now when I look out my front window, there is no immediate relief to the gray concrete. No bright patch of green. Perhaps you think it's silly to mourn 15-20 feet of grass and dirt, but when I think of all the times we've played in it, watched bugs in it, marveled over the wasp like creatures that hatch there each summer (we always have a couple of weeks where we have to exit the car on the opposite side) picked clover from it (poor bees, poor bunnies) seen snow fall on it in the bleak winter, and just plain felt grateful for that little patch of "our lawn" I feel seriously sad.
All afternoon I've been contemplating the writing of a story where a champion named Prince Verdi saves a small town from a concrete monster.
Folks, here's the long and short of it: the world needs more green and less concrete. Trust me on this.
7 comments:
I couldn't agree more. It always irks me when they "pave paradise and put in a parking lot." Sorry to hear you've lost your bit of lawn... :( I wish I could send you a bit of mine!
I'm so sorry. I can completely relate. We live in an apartment complex with a whole lotta parking lot... yet we still have a lot of trees and grass around us. Even that much isn't quite enough for me. I desperately want a lawn of my own, right outside my door.
I don't remember if I saw the recommendation for it here on your blog or elsewhere on the 'net, but we recently got the children's book called The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown. Describes exactly your situation.... but has a happily green ending. :)
Erin, thanks for the commiseration. :-) I think I need to try my hand at a poem soon, one that expresses my gratitude for green!
Becky, "a lawn of one's own" sounds like a good idea for a book title! :-)
Thanks for the empathy, and the book recommendation too. I think I've seen that book on our library's shelves. We'll have to check it out!
I'm so sorry, Beth. Truly.
When we've been house-hunting in recent years, people would ask, "Do you want a view?" And I'd say no. All I want is trees. The place we ended up in used to have a view, and the owner was apologizing because the neighbor's trees have grown up so high, they completely block the view. So what? At least we have trees!
...I just wish your nearby sycamores were evergreens, so you could see green out your window all year round....
Thank you, Janet. We just got back from our family vacation: 3 days/2 nights on the Erie peninsula. I felt like I literally drank in all the green trees and amazing blue sky and brown sand and the beautiful sound of the wind and waves...tried to drink it in and just hold onto it in a place deep inside, where I can draw on the reserves in the months to come!
I sometimes dream about living in a pine forest.
In our old house, I looked out from office onto a vista of sycamores and sequoias... my kids called it "the forest" (though of course it wasn't really... And right by the window, an enormous eucalyptus that had canaries (or some other bright yellow bird) that would come and visit, as well as hummingbirds.
...When we were forced to sell, the new owners chopped down the eucalyptus. I cried and cried when I learned, and wondered what would happen to my canaries.... I haven't even been able to drive into that neighborhood since....
Glad you got a few days of green!
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