The Storybook Life

Romantic? Maybe, but you might also lose a shoe.

I’ve been lied to. You’ve been lied to. Specifically, about the romanticism of the abandoned and overgrown aesthetic. How many times has a character in a book come across an abandoned place, overgrown and unloved, and found magic there or brought it back to life?

Maybe I read the Secret Garden too much as a child.

But still. I remember as a child watching the yard get ridiculously overgrown in the few weeks of Southern California rain, which kept it too wet to mow while it grew, easily reaching my waist. And then I would beg my dad to leave it so I could wander whimsically through it. He always laughed and told me I’d step in unsavory things if I couldn’t see them. Then he would cut it.

I loved wandering through the fields and groves that surrounded our house for the hint of wild in them. And I took that as I grew, fueled by more books, and I became the sort of person who loves watching shows about renovating castles and Rehab Addict on HGTV. And then finally, FINALLY, I was able to purchase my own home, with just enough of a sad backstory, old enough but not too old, and a big yard that needed some love. I’m living the storybook life!

Except those books have way too little work, sweat, and foxtails down your socks. The neighbors say the yard has been full of foxtails and allowed to reseed itself every year. Hasn’t been worked in years. That would have been a selling point for me- now it’s a major hurdle to the next dream of having a hammock and lemonade summer. (I’m sure there’s more hurdles, including the fact that I don’t have a hammock.)

Plus yard work is very arm intensive, and it’s hard to type after. But I’m making notes, because you better believe I file away all my new experiences. And I’m planning on putting it in a story eventually. Some poor princess is going to have to go through a lot of pain to get her enchanted castle. In the meantime, I have a lot of raking to do.