Yards (Part One)

Yards

As a child, my first back yard was a large rectangle of grass kept short each year by earlier mowing and later drought. A swingset sat perfectly perpendicular to the house. A peeling red wooden picnic table with matching benches sat similarly perpendicular but closer to the house about halfway between the swingset and the far end of the house. There was only one tree in the yard, an old crippled apple tree that never bore fruit. A permanently shadowed Georgia pine forest bordered the back yard on three sides. A brown margin of fallen needles framed the yard. I rarely ventured into or beyond that margin. A stray ball was retrieved speedily. No one ever told stories about those woods, and I never saw anyone going into or coming out of them. I just knew I didn’t want to go in there. I imagined wolves lowering their heads to look at the house from between the trees as they loped past on their hunt. There are no wolves in Georgia. I often heard dogs barking in the distance.


I once returned, as a teenager, on summer break visiting my grandmother who lived across the street. The yard was the same rectangle, though the swingset and picnic table were gone. There were no chairs or even brown spots in the grass to indicate that anyone ever used the backyard. I walked to the pine needle margin, stepped into the woods. and was not immediately swallowed up. I was surprised at how sparse the trees were. As dark and as cool as it felt, the pine trees were so far apart that I could not touch two at a time. And there was very little in the way of underbrush growing between them. The ground was covered with long brown needles. The upper story of branches blocked out most of the light, but the lowest branches were 20 feet high. I walked a few steps in and turned to look at the house, the view the wolves would have had. The house sat quietly, brightest white in the midday sun, unbothered by my betrayal.


My earliest memory is of lying on a blanket in that yard. You may not believe me; I was too young to sit up on my own. Our dog stood over me, smiling, licking my face, smothering me in the love for which most people spend a lifetime yearning and searching. I remember looking to the house for help, unable to call out, knowing my mother was scrubbing and drying and putting away the breakfast dishes.