My Own Backyard

Right now, my backyard (top photo) is not a pretty sight. But give it a few months and it will transform itself as it did last year (lower photos). What a difference a season makes. If only I could transform myself so dramatically in such a short time!

“When I was a young teenager and wanted to be a writer and couldn’t wait to leave home and go on the road in search of adventures to write about, my mother said, ‘There are stories in your own backyard.’

“‘Ha!’ I said. So I left home, went on the road, had lots of adventures, and eventually, 25 years later, the first book I published took place in the backyard of my childhood. Ha!”

(Dayal Kaur Khalsa, children’s book writer, on writing)

http://www.tundrabooks.com/authors/Khalsa_d.html

Looking out at my own backyard, I wonder what lessons it holds for me. What can I learn by paying close attention to it? What does my garden tell me about myself, for I have shaped it into what it has become. I am there in every leaf and bloom.