I took the picture below about 5PM yesterday. The preparatory work for today's concrete pour was winding down, and I was entranced by the warmth of the late afternoon light across the front yard and the driveway. Workers were beginning to drift away, although a couple would be here for another hour, hopefully (at least in my mind) not the same ones who had been here before 8 in the morning, but I know that is just wishful thinking. I've worked with some of these people for a year, they feel like friends.
The pour itself started at 5 AM this morning, and they tell me that it will wind up, that they will be washing and cutting, sometime after 10PM tonight. if the weather holds and they are able to finish the pour today.
As they have been cleaning up, framing the driveway for the pour, and generally getting everything together and in place, the yard has been becoming just that, a yard, a place to live rather than a construction site. It is still a little of both but it is beginning to look like the place I imagined. Better in fact. And that is a testament both to my dreams and ideas but even more so to the fabulous people who have been helping me realize them. You can't really see the future driveway in the picture above, just a bit of crushed stone on the right side, where it will meet the pavers, but it is there. The area of dirt in the back will be grass, even though I think our obsession with grass and lawns is environmentally ill-advised, and it might well evolve into something else over time. The areas covered with black landscape fabric will eventually be planted, but they may also just exist as swaths of mulch for a while, as I figure out what I want to do and buy plants. It is too hot to plant now, too late in the season to order plants if I intend to be particular, and I do, so this will be a garden that evolves. But evolving gardens is something I can do on my own.
Here are more pictures from yesterday afternoon. At one point there were several large mechanical creatures crawling around my driveway: loading, unloading, thumping, packing-down. The house shook. Tikka retreated back under the bed.
But I can really imagine it now, imagine how it will look, someday in my dreams, when I've figured out plants and all that. Which may never happen. I am not interested in a landscape, in hiring someone to toss in a bunch of plants so it looks manicured and neat. I am interested in a garden. Of course there will be the public face, and the more private inner circle.....I don't quite know how that will evolve yet.
But it will. In the photo above I am looking west, into my neighbor's backyard -- the private space. And I want my own space to be just as nice, not in the same way, but in my own way. A part of me doubts I can pull it off, not because I am not capable, but because I always have more plans than patience, and I tend to start and never finish. Or maybe I am gaining confidence in my own dreams, and my ability let them fly, as long as I don't let those dreams run away with my common sense. Piles of dirt can become gardens with time and vision and work. I wonder if it is foolish to think about 20-year gardens when I am 61. But why not? The worse thing that can happen is it can become just another overgrown hunk of yard, but it will be my overgrown hunk of yard. Or I can decide I am no longer interested in DIY gardening and capitulate to the landscapers. At the moment I think having something to work toward, even at my own pokey pace, is a joy. This hunk of dirt isn't just a hunk of dirt. It is life. It is potential. It is its own field of dreams.
During a final walk-through yesterday evening, we paused and looked in toward the patio. That patio, its placement and charm, is one of the things that attracted me to the house. Silly I know, to be drawn to plants (most of which are now gone) and ephemeral stuff. But I have maintained the feel of the space, and the intimacy of that small space is still there, but better. One plant I love may or may not survive the work, but others are thriving and a few things I disliked are gone. The colors of the bluestone make me smile and echo the colors of earth and sky and plants all around. In fact the whole back yard is evolving from a space that was just an afterthought, a place I would rather not think about into a space I love. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, it doesn't quite look the way I imagined it, it is better. What I really wanted was a feeling, a space that felt a certain way. And I think we are on our way, this back garden and I.
In fact the thing that has really amazed me is that it is turning out so incredibly nicely. Deep in my heart, throughout this whole process, I have feared this would prove to be a mistake -- a folly on a grand scale. It happens a lot. But fear is not necessarily a bad thing. I think it drives us to push ourselves, and even everything had not turned out as well as it appears to be so far, despite upsets and changes, I think I would be glad to have done all this. Perhaps fear is even a good thing. If I am afraid of doing something perhaps it is exactly what I need to do, to push myself, and the fear itself can also be a system of checks, a driving force toward compromise and a brake on arrogance. Of course the fear can also easily get out of control so who knows. This is all just posturing after the worst of it is over.
Of course I still have to see the actual driveway. But whatever happens it has been an adventure.
