I am woken up to the early bird. The early birds. They are perched in the twin ornamental pear trees that find their roots below the surface of my small square of dirt surrounded by three walls and a house. The doves, finches, cardinals, and sparrows all live together in the trees, to them they are skyscrapers. The two trees have grown with me. 17 years ago they were small saplings just as I was, and have now grown side by side to rival the height of my two-story row home.
When it storms and the wind blows the trees rock back and forth. Although I know it unlikely I always worry about the trees falling. When I was little I wished I could collapse them like an umbrella to bring them inside to shelter them from the storm. With these storms the yard has stained with age, the walls once a bright gray now a dark wet green.
It's an island in a sea of concrete and corridors of flat brick cliffs. It is a fortress of memory, hidden from the street and only seen by neighbors peering over walls or out windows. It is lush in the spring and summer, barren in the winter. It has seen many chapters of my life, from the sandbox to the baby pool, from my 12th birthday, to spring dinners with my family.
The thick ivy that covers the wall creeps closer and closer to the house, clothing it in green. The cracks in the cheaply poured concrete act as the free throw line for games of pickup with my sister and dad on the Little Tikes basketball hoop now looking a little worse for wear. Flowers up against the wall pray not to be crushed under a loose basketball.
Potted plants, herb after herb, add another dimension to family dinner. We come together to plant these in the spring and watch them grow. When it rains the concrete reeks of nostalgia, the time spent looking for rolly pollies in the grass and coming to the realization that maybe every ant didn't need to be squished.
The mourning dove couple coos in the morning light, in the afternoon heat, in the quickly approaching dusk. Never too far from each other, the whispers of their wings in flight are immediately recognizable. The doves aren't the only thing flying through my yard though. The hulking birds of transport fly from the airport over my house's air space like a constant flow of traffic. Always sounding if they were falling closer and closer to the ground until they were gone.
Just like an oasis in a desert, a city of sand, my yard is uncommon but always salvation always a place to unwind and replenish. I see it every noisy mourning and every noisy night, it is the source of a number of the sensations I love so, many of the feelings and memories I have experienced. The four walls, two of concrete one of wood, and the other my kitchen wall form around a square of grass and two trees and I couldn't ask for another space.
header image: mourning dove couple photographed from my backyard