The Wild Things

This morning, Angie is at Mia’s helping her pack for a weekend move. I went off to work and left Donny to get Henry to daycare. I half expected they’d still be here when I returned. They’re not. I have the house to myself. I have the house to myself for the whole day unless Donny comes home unexpectedly. I thought of running out to turn on the heater in the cabin, which I did yesterday only to never get there, and with the house empty, I don’t really want it. I want to be here in my quiet house alone. I can’t hardly believe that I am here in my house…alone. Praise be.

Outside this window, the day is awash in colors. Henry’s plastic play house with it’s green roof and red swinging door. His climbing cube: orange slide, with yellow and blue and green side panels. His swing, hanging from the arbor, in the middle of the path to the woods: red seat, yellow tray, blue connecting straps. The glass topped table and green chairs that go with it. The green grass full of yellow leafs. The golden wood of the cabin becoming visible through a break in the foliage. It feels like a wild, wonderful day.

I am here in my house alone.

The only animal moving in the yard is a lone squirrel. First on the ground, then up the tree, then sitting on top of the bird house. Gathering with a frenetic energy. That is what I’m like. This is the necessary balance. Ah.

Raise my eyes to the sky and it is the opposite of colorful: dull, no color, no movement, no clouds, no sun. A winter sky. A bit of rain has fallen. The street sweepers are out in force. A before-winter clean-up has begun.

Driving out to visit my client there are dots of “settlements” amidst the wild country. The settlements are flat, or at least leveled, and groomed. The streets are paved, the houses are neat, there is order. In the wild country no such taming has occurred. The hills rise and fall. A deep depression becomes a watering hole. There are sheep and cows.

A sign at the athletic center near the open fields announces, “No horses allowed.”

In my gentleman farmer’s driveway there is a gallon jug of Tide stuck to the top of a street cone. It is the reflector that announces the split in the driveway, the turn to the house. It reminds me of my dad. His reflector was a gallon milk jug. The jugs announce: this is where the wild things live. Don’t need to buy our reflectors at Menard’s. Don’t need to worry about the neighbors thinking we’ve got eye-sores in our driveway, junk piled down the hill. Plastic chairs toppled by wind and left where they lie. Towels over the stair rail. Black garbage bags split open serving as well as tarps.

This is “making-do” land. This is my yard, my dad’s yard, the wild yards.

Someone once said that manicured gardens are restful to the mind. I think the wild things are restful to the heart.