My backyard with its towering oak trees and rugged grass is my favorite place in the world.
It’s huge but not too huge. There’s plenty of space to play and do projects without being so big that the normal yard work takes up too much of my time.
We’re remote but not too remote. We live off the beaten path in what I’d say qualifies as a semi-rural area. We’re deep in the sticks if we drive just up the road, but if we turn the other way we’re just 20 minutes to the heart of Buffalo. There’s also a wonderful sense of community in my neighborhood in spite of the houses being far apart. People walk their dogs in the street and wave to you every time you drive past.
I love to be outside. But let me qualify this more. Most of all I love to be outside on grass and below trees. I love cities too, but expansive greenery is my favorite. I also want privacy and to have some control over who enters my personal space. In urban areas this can be hard, but it’s an issue for me everywhere. Even if I’m walking around my neighborhood I sometimes find myself running into too many people for my liking.
I want some room to move around too. I grew up in the city in an awesome house with a compact yard in a really cool neighborhood. Our home sat on a postage stamp-size piece of land compared to what I have now. I had an amazing childhood, but city life is no longer for me. The yard of my youth is now too small for my liking, but not much more is needed to create the spaciousness I’m after. Think 3 stamps, not 1. We found this easily outside the city, and now there’s no going back for me.
My backyard checks all these boxes. It’s vast, grassy, and private. We build our weekend days around homemade feasts, which we grill on the patio. And I can run inside if I need anything at all or if nature calls (I can also pee outside, which I do all the time).
We have traditions back there too. Raking and jumping in the leaves. Picking up sticks after rain storms. Huge bonfires and barbecues. Des and I sleep outside in the tent often as well, really often. Much of our life happens in the backyard.
So my yard is literally the yard of my dreams. And when we’re home and don’t need to drive to school or soccer, we are right where we want to be, in our house that sits on our perfect plot of land, with our beautiful backyard always nurturing us.
I like to walk around the yard and check on the plants and projects. We planted a row of arbor vitae earlier this year and I visit them a few times a week to see if they’re growing healthy. Is that one on the end browning too much? What can we do to help it out a bit?
With my projects I find it relaxing and therapeutic (and also super fun) to slowly move them forward and make them better. For example, I’m currently working on a stone pathway that will run from our driveway to Julie’s art studio, which sits about 100 feet behind our house. I’ve come to call this path “Art Avenue.” The plan is pretty much set now, but in the beginning all I knew is that I wanted a path that went from one spot to another. The width of the path, its curvature, and the materials from which it would be built were all undefined. They were open questions.
These questions then got answered as I made the best decision at any given time on the project’s next step. And to make the best decision on the next step, the key is to fully realize the prior step you were working on. You need to take it as far as it can go, including cleaning up after so that you can stare at your work and realize what’s working and what isn’t as you let all the options churn around in your mind until a precise plan for the next step is made.
Answering these questions as I slowly make progress on each project is the endlessly satisfying routine that I’ve recently started calling “backyard therapy.” For years I’ve felt that a universal theory of sorts could be built around it, giving some solace to those struggling to find happiness in this ultra busy world. I’ve historically referred to this concept as the “push theory” when talking to myself because it’s based on taking meaningful steps forward, pushing as far as you can go at any given moment, and then allowing time for reflection as you plot your next move. Each step forward is a push, but you really need to push forward as far as you can on each step to set the stage for coming up with the next big idea. If you leave obvious things unresolved, your mind will gravitate towards those, preventing you from seeing next level opportunities to take the project to an amazing, perhaps surprising, place.
The idea is simple. When you’re finding your way through a project with a clear but fuzzy plan, you determine a next step that will allow you to advance it. Then you fully realize that next step so that you can appreciate it without distraction. You clean up your tools so that the mess doesn’t distract you from where you are in the project. And then you make obvious interventions that present themselves. You take it as far as you can go and then you stop. You inspect. You take a break. And then you keep coming out to the yard to walk around it, look at it, think about the big picture of the project as well as what the best next step should be.
I have a number of projects moving forward at any given time that are all patiently desiring my attention. And then I give these projects the time I have, whatever it is, and make improvements. Around and around the circle it goes.
It’s also important to have several projects in different stages of completion. This allows you to work on something that suits your current mood and level of energy. If I had a tough and stressful day at the office, I probably don’t want to think through a creative solution to a tough design problem. That would require too much mental energy and I’m not thinking clearly anyway. Instead I’d rather do something physical, like move several wheelbarrows full of dirt to the rhubarb garden we’re planting near Julie’s studio. My blood will start pumping and the movement will work through some of my stress.
I love this little theory of mine. It feels foundational to some extent to my world view. I start projects and keep forging ahead with lots of breaks to figure out the next step, to make the next big decision. This process also feels extremely obvious to me. It’s commonly practiced, and I’m sure that’s been the case for thousands if not millions of years.
But I love it. It’s very creative and physical at the same time. There are some things that you need to feel your way through. There’s not a creative planning phase followed by an execution phase. They both happen at the same time instead, the creative informing the physical execution and vice versa.
The future path of Art Avenue was initially represented with two rows of orange cones. I mocked it up as simply as I could. Then I’d look now and again at the curve of the path and refine it so that it flowed better. It was adjusted and readjusted several times. This back and forth is how it works.
You sit and stare at the project for a while. You go inside and then come back out a little later. Ideas start to present themselves on how to move forward. There are small ideas that slightly refine and improve what you have. These are good and easy to act on. There are also larger ideas that are more complex and more consequential for the project. These also take longer to come together, so you need to give them time to evolve. It might take days of looking at the project site and thinking, wondering. But eventually the ideas flow and become solid enough to act on. Larger interventions are made at this point, and then you go as far as you can. You fully realize that step. And then you stare and contemplate and repeat.
So the process continues. It’s never ending, always evolving, and continually trending in a better direction. Each project is satisfying in and of itself, but there’s also a cumulative force that adds to the satisfaction as more and more projects are completed.
The original Karate Kid movie made a huge impression on me when I was young. Of course the main plot line with Daniel beating Johnny at the end was what moved me most, but a close second was Mr. Miyagi’s backyard. It was a beautiful oasis. It’s location was more urban than mine, but it served a similar function. It was at once a place to relax, as well as a place that could be continually transformed with projects big and small to create more beauty, more harmony, more relaxing vibes. The act of working on his backyard was a way to relax. It’s a different kind of relaxation than sitting on a sun chair with a drink in your hand, but it’s a form of relaxation nonetheless. If you’re working at a measured pace and not pushing too hard, if the project interests you and brings you joy, then this kind of work can be a way to re-center yourself, to ground you in action, to do something that brings a little beauty and order to the world.
I love to work on projects in my yard. The work I do to provide for my family is so cerebral, so desk oriented, so rooted in the mind and the brain. In the yard it’s more physical, shoveling, lifting, wheel barrowing. This counterbalance is beautiful. At work I’m also the boss, which means I work through people all the time. I find myself on the front lines less often. My backyard work is direct. It’s me and the soil (or the bricks or the wood or the shrubs). I lift things myself, bury them, carry them. The physical labor tires my muscles and takes the emphasis away from my constantly cycling mind.
I built this. We built this. My family and I. Our friends helped too. Each completed project now represents a moment in our lives, a phase. I made the brick patio the first year of covid. There was that time Jeremy was over and helped us get the trellis up. The yard is our outdoor living room, but it’s also a gallery of our family projects. The blowing wind and falling leaves are filled with memories.
They’re also filled with promise of a wonderful future, enjoying the yard for exactly what it is, but also transforming it and making it better everyday.
I still have much to learn from my backyard, much to experience, much to enjoy and love. But I’ve already learned so much too. Backyard therapy has made my life better and richer.
Thank you my lovely backyard. Like The Giving Tree, you give us all you have, which is so much. I appreciate your wisdom and your companionship.