I have an amazing deck in my backyard. You’d probably gasp if you knew what I paid to
have that built. I had to have the feet sunk deep in concrete because it’s on
the hill. I had to buy a slide that wasn’t a standard in height or color. It
had to be that height and color to come off the deck and hide in the tree just
so. Now, in its second summer, it peeks out from behind a great California
Pepper tree and hides its inhabitants from the rest of the world.
There’s a hopscotch path that leads to the deck on one side.
It actually leads to a path to the deck - a curving, almost hidden path with
hand holds on the side in case going up or down is ever an issue. A beautiful
honeysuckle-covered archway marks where the hopscotch path begins, and to the
right of that is a pagoda-shaped shaded sand box filled with beach sand of the
most amazing texture. Scattered among
all these paths are messages welcoming angels and fairies and friends. There
are impatiens planted around a crab apple tree and blue-blooming flowers on a
bush I can never remember the name of, and in the spring the magnificence of it
all is astounding. It’s a true fairy garden.
On the far side from the fairy garden is another path up the
hill. This one is rigged with a rope along the fence to help with the climbing.
There’s a secret path to the deck from here. It’s small – too small for me,
but completely accessible for the wee one that slips quietly through. There are
stairs built now too. They lead up to a terraced garden – but not on that side.
No, the far left - against the fence - is reserved for mountain climbing and ‘search
and rescue’ and all sorts of adventures that have been had and many that have
not yet even been imagined.
There’s not one day that goes by that she doesn’t visit some
part of her magical world. As I watch her traipse in and out of view, her lips
moving inaudibly playing out the script she’s written where she’s a super hero
or a fairy or a shark… I realize this backyard – this house - so far out here
and isolated and so much too dear for my current state of finances… This house,
this backyard… gives her a childhood that someday she may not take for granted.
Or maybe she always will… but …it gives her a childhood.
And you see, with this one. . . That may be all she’s got.
Perhaps that is true with all of us. Perhaps whatever we
have of life, whether it be 100 years or 30 or 10, it’s only as wonderful as we
let it be. And perhaps I’m foolish in thinking that spending money I don’t
really have to give a child a bigger life than the doctors predict, will give
her a bigger life. After all, they say ‘30’ and a lot happens in 20 years. (So
much happens in 20 years.) But, is there a place I can conjure up where I’d
regret giving her a world where fairies live and magic happens? Is there a life
too long where that could ever be a regret? Of course not.
So I will.
I will stoke the magic and the fantasy. I will
encourage the buds and fruit to bloom. I will help bend the branches to hide us
from the world. We. We will travel and explore and hug and kiss and draw and
create and love. We. We will hope and support and nurture. And we will do this
no matter what the rest of the world does. While its inhabitants hide behind
its paranoia and fear and want for weapons and hate and blame and ugliness
against the unknown. We? We will battle on facing our very real foe. We will take
up no weapons but love and we will engage no soldiers save our own resolve but we will be truer and braver and we will live more.
