Sandra Heska King

daring to open doors

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Today In the Yard

September 27, 2010 By Sandra Heska King

Today’s the day.

The day I start working my way through God in the Yard.

For the rest of me.

I know L.L. will ask me to spend time outside.

Daily.

It all starts with the sight of a nibbled mozzarella medallion.

Fascinated with the morning clouds, gray tide moving east to west, I take my camera with me. I’m still in nightie and robe and slippers, and it’s 45 degrees out. I know this because I take my phone to time myself (I’ll spend at least 10 minutes out there), and I check the temperature on it. I know if I go in to dress, I’ll get sidetracked.

I dizzy myself as I spin and snap sky pictures, and I laugh at the blue jay who scolds me from from the top of a tree.

Then I go inside for a cup of hot coffee (next time it will be tea) and come back out. I decide to sit on the porch steps. Except there on the porch are the once vibrant multicolored mums I bought last month, tucked now in a corner for protection from a strong wind weeks ago, and forgotten. I’ve killed them. I hope the end was quick and painless. The remaining blooms in the back are silk. I turn my back on my failure.

The endless rush of traffic to the north of the field irritates me, so I close my eyes and pretend it’s the sound of ocean waves. I try to sit quietly and focus my thoughts and try to center and listen for God, but instead I hear the twin engines of a plane, and my eyes snap open, and I run out to the drive to see it cruising just below the clouds. And the red of sumac leaves catches my eyes, and so I go back to the porch for my camera and then walk across wet, fresh mowed grass to the side of the road and into the ditch to, you guessed it, snap some pictures.

And when I come back to the steps, I look down and see that my white slippers, the ones that escaped the hot spaghetti sauce bath a few days ago, are green fringed, and my feet are even colder.

It’s hard to sit still. So many things I want to see up close, and I go to them instead of waiting for the world to come to me.

A shark cloud is about to eat the rest of the cheese, and I remember bills to pay and laundry to do and groceries to get and stuff I want to write, and so I check my phone for the time. I’ve been outside for 30 minutes.

Could I sit outside every day? For an hour? Every day? Even in the snow like L.L.?

The moon is swallowed up. All gone.

But I find a treasure clinging to our Rose Dog bush, and so I gather some stones and make a centerpiece.

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Filed Under: stories and reflections

Comments

  1. L.L. Barkat says

    September 27, 2010 at 7:18 pm

    I love this! What an auspicious beginning. All of it. The back and forth, the regrets, the hopes, the mums and the moon, the musings and the stones. You’ve done exactly what you should, which is nothing particular at all. You just followed the moments, and there’s a beauty in that.

    • Sandra says

      September 27, 2010 at 10:46 pm

      I really wish I’d been able to start this book earlier in the summer when it was warmer. 🙂

  2. nance nAncY nanc heyyou davisbaby says

    September 28, 2010 at 12:14 am

    maybe if you go out at three am. the traffic noise will be softer…but, so will the colours. hum…

    • Sandra says

      October 4, 2010 at 7:20 am

      Ha. Maybe I’ll try that. Or look forward to winter when the snow falls in big flakes and the highway is to slick to drive.

  3. Jay Cookingham says

    September 28, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    Isn’t great that God IS in our yard…and wherever we go?

    Beautiful post!

    • Sandra says

      October 4, 2010 at 7:20 am

      Just a matter of tuning up the eyes. 😉

  4. Michelle DeRusha says

    September 30, 2010 at 10:49 am

    You inspire me. I read God in the Yard this summer…but I didn’t do the exercises. Why? I don’t know. Fear? Fear of spending the time of something were I wouldn’t “accomplish” anything? I admire you for taking the bull by the horns…even as the weather grows damp and cool. Should I try it too?

    • Sandra says

      October 4, 2010 at 7:21 am

      Do! Do!

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