Have I told you I don’t know the boundaries of the property on which our home is planted? I can’t perceive the edges of it or understand how its lines run because I don’t want to. I’ve never walked its length, and I won’t in the future either.
I’ve heard it said we own a piece of earth that’s shaped like a slice of pie—with the wide part at the back and the narrow part in the front. I know the front part; I walk through the house’s main entrance daily. It’s the terrain’s backside that’s the secret—the wide, crusty casing of it, if we keep the pastry analogy.
In June, Husband and I quarried the trees back there for slabs of flagstone the previous owner had flung into the growth, maybe hoping they’d disappear, but we discovered them in time to build Flicka’s wedding path. So, yes, I wandered into the trees then, but only so far; I couldn’t bear to see the end of the land because then I would know.
Despite surveyors with their fancy public records claiming we own three-quarters of an acre, I believe our property stretches for miles, lazily splayed out, of course. And the perennial whir I’m told is traffic on Interstate 694 rushing behind our wall isn’t something I can get behind. Instead, what I hear is the roaring of a majestic waterfall, and those screeches and honks are exotic birds summoning each other over its spray.
Husband knows what’s really out there, and the girls too, I’m sure, but they show mercy and don’t tell me. To me, there are hills and ravines and caves and paths and clearings where the deer, raccoons, coyotes, and opossums snooze after they’ve stuffed themselves with apples from the tree near our swimming pool. Those creatures romp around campfires, deliver their jokes, soak in hot springs, birth their babies, and explore various ecosystems far, far away in places beyond my scope that we still own.
When the trees go naked in the winter, and I can see more, I just don’t. I avert my eyes until spring and pretend I don’t notice a thing. It seems what we already have is none of my business, so I’m respectful of my place in it.
And I let the mystery play out.
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*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka and their husbands, Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr.