Our home was built in 1942, and only two families have occupied it since it was picked from a Sears catalog. It is small and the space is used efficiently – no odd corners in the kitchen or narrow apertures on the landing, which you find in older homes. It is built with economy. Precision. The bathroom is small because the furnace chimney fits snuggly behind the drywall by the sink. The outcropped wall in the second bedroom is there to allow a linen closet the depth of half my forearm in the hallway.
The woman of the house was still living when we purchased the home, but she passed soon after at a ripe old age. The neighbors told us. She and her husband reared five children in this house, which is no mean feat in a 1290sqft home. Her son came by after we got the deed and told us to call if we had any questions. He said we’d trip a fuse if we used a blow-dryer and the microwave at once, and he chuckled when he saw the new hardwood piled in boxes in the living room. “You know there’s hardwood under the carpet,” he said, eyes alight. Good stock, those people, you could tell.
Once, the woman of the house – another Mary, as it happens – had made something of her yard, but in her old age she kept the yard plain. There was a forgotten flower bed along one portion of the yard – slender, but an opportunity to see a few blooms in the Spring. I like to imagine this made Mary glad.
Every once in a while, I have been vicariously sad for Mary while we updated the house because no one likes to see their history altered. I wondered if she would have been happy when we ripped up the old, gape-toothed hardwood and laid down fresh planks of the same color and brand. Or if she would like my wild blue wall in the living room and the hallway. One neighbor said he came in once to help Mary with the TV; he mentioned that there was an inordinate number of bunnies in the décor. Three years after we’ve moved in, the band around the bathroom where the bunny wallpaper used to hang still shines whiter than the rest of the room, but the only bunnies hereabouts are resting under soft down in the strawberry patch, waiting for their eyes to open.
I know truly that Mary would love the backyard. Sometimes my own breath catches when the sun is heading down, making all the greens greener and the purples more purple and the rich loam richer – and I open the side gate and enter the secret garden of a cultivated place. If you told me this quarter acre with the bent and rusted chainmail fence was the sacred ground of Eden, I’d be half inclined to believe it. The Lord told Adam that He meant for man to cultivate the earth, and cultivate this space we have.
I read a piece from this writer today, who has farmed all her life and still marvels at the sprouting seed. We are new to all of this around here, and the wonder of a small pebble sent to bed under damp soil strikes me as ludicrously wonderful. To take a seed pack and dump your money and your time into the earth and – wonder of wonders – to see the mystery of a slender green frond reaching up for sunshine . . . well, in the words of King David, “such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it” (Psalm 139:6).
I don’t know much about the previous Mary, about her hopes and dreams for this space, about the way she loved or loathed working the land. But I know it is good to see God’s creatures finding sanctuary here. To see the bees dance over the heads of borage and nasturtium, to see the orange winged butterflies, to see forms with nestled baby rabbits warmed by their mother, to watch the salamanders skitter back and forth over the old wood by the garage as the shadows frighten them, to see the robin and the blue jay walk our high grass like they own this land, because, of course, we have cultivated it for them as well, and we are glad to see them here.
This brought tears to my eyes without knowing the “first” Mary. 💕
Thank you for the lovely tour of your property, Mary the Younger! I think Mary the Elder would be delighted to see the house refreshed, the yard decked with flowers and hosting a variety of wildlife (including two little boys!). I wonder if bunnies lived in the backyard when Mary and her family occupied the house, thus inspiring the bunny theme?!