Bringing Life Back
Go to dinner with me this evening, my husband suggests.
I am working in the garden behind the house. Where the chickens used to be. Where the empty beehive still stands at the far end. I didn't answer.
Think about it for a bit and let me know, he says.
I nod.
As I pull weeds, shift pavers around, lug cinder blocks to line the fence, I think about the neglect of the space. Life resonated throughout the garden once. Chickens. Bees. Birds. Rabbits. Snakes.
Now an emptiness fills the space, and emptiness that began two years ago with the chickens, after a neighbor complained to the city, and a city official showed up one sunny June morning, telling me to remove the chickens from the premises. The emptiness grew when the bees absconded, leaving the hive to follow the queen wherever it was she had decided to go.
The sadness I felt then stirs from my heartspace. Dormant for a long time but still residing within. Still a part of me these two years since.
Bringing life back, somehow, some way, took me into the garden. I'd been standing at the kitchen window, finishing a cup of coffee, when a bird at the empty bird bath caught my attention. That bird, its need for water, sent a whisper through me, triggering my need to feel earth between my toes, sift through my hands, blacken my fingernails.
Perhaps going to dinner with my husband is a start for us to bring life back to us, I think. Perhaps the bird, the garden, are showing me a way to fill the emptiness that is us right now.
My husband returns as I am checking the rain barrel's spigot.
Dinner, he asks.
Yes, I say.
I am working in the garden behind the house. Where the chickens used to be. Where the empty beehive still stands at the far end. I didn't answer.
Think about it for a bit and let me know, he says.
I nod.
As I pull weeds, shift pavers around, lug cinder blocks to line the fence, I think about the neglect of the space. Life resonated throughout the garden once. Chickens. Bees. Birds. Rabbits. Snakes.
Now an emptiness fills the space, and emptiness that began two years ago with the chickens, after a neighbor complained to the city, and a city official showed up one sunny June morning, telling me to remove the chickens from the premises. The emptiness grew when the bees absconded, leaving the hive to follow the queen wherever it was she had decided to go.
The sadness I felt then stirs from my heartspace. Dormant for a long time but still residing within. Still a part of me these two years since.
Bringing life back, somehow, some way, took me into the garden. I'd been standing at the kitchen window, finishing a cup of coffee, when a bird at the empty bird bath caught my attention. That bird, its need for water, sent a whisper through me, triggering my need to feel earth between my toes, sift through my hands, blacken my fingernails.
Perhaps going to dinner with my husband is a start for us to bring life back to us, I think. Perhaps the bird, the garden, are showing me a way to fill the emptiness that is us right now.
My husband returns as I am checking the rain barrel's spigot.
Dinner, he asks.
Yes, I say.
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