“Sometimes the most awkward words are actually prayers. And if you don’t know what a prayer is, actually, you do. I can’t over-estimate the value of the benefits of lying in the grass. But because, as a society, we feel assaulted by invisible threats, we might even avoid this one, simple pleasure. I can only give testimony to what I know about sprawling free-form onto random acreage what you might refer to as your “yard”. The glories of such privilege have been dimmed by scourges and pandemics of late. And yet, I would liken the expanse around your house to an Elysian Field. Because here, on our own dirt, is where we most acutely experience our freedoms. No one is insisting we wear a mask, or stand away from one another, according to a statistically derived mathematical proportion. Here, most assuredly, is a dirt square to engage with however we see fit. Which as I see it, amounts to Mecca, and an indisputable opportunity for genuine genuflection. My Italian grandmother was a devout Catholic, and she loved to give me a tour of her bedside altar, whenever no one else was going to judge her or ridicule her beliefs. I would look up at the little statues, of St. Anthony and Mary Magdalene, sort of creeped out but also open minded. I loved my Granny, and she was a kind of saint unto herself. She never had a bad word for anyone. She rose early, around 4:30, and began busily preparing for the day in her double wide trailer placed on a Floridian crocodile swamp. Her ten foot wide crocheted “Last Supper” hung proudly on the back wall of the screened in porch. She had always wanted a girl, but all her children turned out as boys. So she favored me, in a cozy sort of way. If I’d not been scared of flying, and not so wrapped up with my academic pursuits, I would have done well to hang out with her, for hours at a time, in folding chairs in the car port. As it was, I was lead by the nose on some wild goose chases, that made me feel my future would be wrapped up with folks smarter than she was, by their standards. My father was the chief protagonist. He loved her but condescended to her folk wisdom. I would say at this point, his elitist posturing has crumbled into a pile of misanthropic detritus. I much prefer the company of the things my grandmother championed: vegetables, lost objects, aprons that doubled as ball gowns, and an honest word said at just the right time, to soothe and comfort, in our most critical hour of need.”
