My Backyard

The picture you see here is one I took last week and sent to some of my family. There was no text. Just a subject line: “Our Backyard Fifteen Minutes Ago”. This is the language of my family.

We speak in terms of nature. We speak to each other of the weather, of the living things around us and by these observations we reveal ourselves to each other. Never too directly, mind you. It must be subtle. In my family, we hide ourselves in the landscape of our observations.

When I was eighteen, I discovered through these means that my brother, had become my friend. He rushed into the house to insist I come with him to the nearby ridge to see the “skyscape” of clouds: black upon charcoal upon slate upon blue upon gray, invading the evening sky. By this he revealed his belief that I would feel as he did.

I opt for this indirect method of communication, too. My mother still alludes to the day I called her, enthused about the overwhelming beauty of the woods on a spring day. As she noted, it had been since childhood that I had cried due to tenderness in her presence (and that was while watching “Lassie”). My call, admitting to tears in the woods, seemed to quench a long thirst of hers.

My mother, as you might expect, has had this same reticence. One that can be overcome if the language of nature was invoked. She rarely talks of how she feels toward us but, by bringing us to the screen porch and holding us up to see the robin’s nest built right up against it, she showed us her fascination and we learned when we were young that she had a desire to share her wonder.

So, between my sister in Missouri, me in New Jersey, my brother and parents in Pennsylvania and some select friends, short nature studies are shared. If you listen, you can hear the undercurrent of our joys and shared remembrances in these snippets: “I heard a beautiful birdsong before daybreak today. Do you think it was a mockingbird?” or, “Do you remember how rare it was ever to see a wild turkey? Well, there is a flock in my back yard,” or “Our backyard fifteen minutes ago. . . .”