Off The RecordMy Neighbor Used My Garden as Her Personal Dump \u2014 So I Gave Her a Surprise She Didn\u2019t See Coming
\nI\u2019m seventy-three years old, and I live in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n
Most people, when they see the chair, seem to make an automatic calculation about my world\u2014they assume it\u2019s gotten smaller, more constrained, more limited. They imagine that mobility loss means life loss, that disability equals diminishment. They\u2019re not entirely wrong, but they\u2019re not entirely right either.<\/p>\n
Ezoic
\nMy world didn\u2019t shrink. It just reorganized itself around what I could still reach, still touch, still maintain.<\/p>\n
And what I can reach and touch and maintain is my yard.<\/p>\n
Ezoic<\/p>\n
Source: Unsplash
\nThe Yard That Became Everything
\nIt\u2019s a modest space\u2014maybe a quarter acre of what most people would call ordinary suburban Connecticut real estate. But to me, it\u2019s the entire universe I can control.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got two young maples out front, planted them myself about eight years ago when I could still stand for longer than five minutes without my legs betraying me. They\u2019re thin still, with that delicate quality that young trees have before they develop character. Three fat old evergreens line the side property\u2014Eastern blues that were here before I bought the place, that have survived three decades of New England winters without complaining.<\/p>\n
And then there\u2019s the garden.<\/p>\n
Ezoic
\nIt\u2019s small\u2014maybe eight feet by twelve feet\u2014but I\u2019ve fussed over it like it\u2019s a firstborn child. I grow tomatoes in the summer, though I never seem to eat them before they get overripe. I grow basil because the smell of it reminds me of my mother\u2019s kitchen. I grow whatever else I feel like growing on any given year, which changes based on mood and what seeds I happen to find at the local hardware store.<\/p>\n
Even in winter, I\u2019m out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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