Heroic grass + valiant curtains

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination. – John Keats

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It’s Saturday. A grey but warm-ish morning. Not the least bit sunny, but still quite lovely.

I walked along my street, up the hill and along the next street up. It was a little earlier than usual and there was nobody else out and about.

I passed a house with a fledgling rose garden, jagged-edged leaves in burgundy and deep green sprouting from savagely trimmed limbs.

Further along I passed the house with the giant rosemary hedge. I snapped a sprig off and tucked it into my pocket, but not before giving it a squeeze and smelling my picking hand. 

It’s such an expansive sort of fragrance, isn’t it? Not just about the smell but about the memories and the meaning of the thing.

I walked by the humble and the huge houses, reaching the park faster than ever, perhaps because I was not caught up in ‘good mornings’ or ‘hello there’s’?

I did not see a single dog.

The park was empty. Perhaps because it was Saturday morning and people were still tucked up in beds, their dogs licking their faces and willing them to get up. Or perhaps it was because it was still quite early. I am not sure which. Perhaps both?

Across the road the demolition house looked just the same, surrounded by fences and signage. But as I wandered up the side street I could see a giant digger (what ARE they called?) with its monster claw raised. The back half of the house had been completely torn off, leaving the bathroom exposed. The funny thing was that the bathroom curtains were still in place. White gauze curtains shuffling gently in the breeze, valiantly trying to provide some privacy. It was no use, of course. Not now that monster digger had begun pulling the place apart with clumsy, noisy pulls and smashes.

The trees in the garden had all be smashed too. None of it felt okay, but I reminded myself of the other day’s train of thought. About the fact that people were benefiting from all this smashing. About the constant reinvention and transformation that surrounds us …

Look at the plants, for instance. Sometimes they are barren and twiggy and dull … and other times they are bloom-filled and green and reaching for the sky.  I’m not saying it’s GOOD that houses and trees and gardens are smashed up. But I suppose it is part of a bigger transformative compulsion?

(That said, I suppose at the heart of this house’s reinvention is a financial sort of transformation. Whether that is good or bad I am not sure. Perhaps it is neither. Perhaps it just IS.)

As I walked on, I noticed the houses with high fences, their front and side yards edged with trees around a central treeless space. Some of those spaces held swimming pools, I think. And others lawn, perhaps?

I know I could look at Google maps and digitally peek over the fence from above, but I much prefer the from-the-footpath guesswork.

Further along I passed a Venetian blind-ed window. Beyond it was the back of a giant computer screen and a pink jumper-ed shoulder. I looked away, so as not to be a creep, and walked on.

Magnolias are going nuts in my neighbourhood right now (perhaps yours too?) They’re opening their castanet petals and perching on the end of branches that reach over the pathways and fences, ready to party. Magnolias are especially attention seeking and I can’t say I blame them because I would be too if I was that pretty.

Do you know what else I was thinking about on my walk today? Apart from crumpets?Grass. The way the grass particularly - but plants in general - are quietly holding things together for us.

And about how we don’t give the grasses enough credit, really. We’re so busy noticing the magnolias that we literally walk right over the grass.

The grass doesn’t seem to mind. It’s too busy making a net of roots and mapping shoots and holding the earth in underneath us.

Thank you, grass.

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