"IMAGINATION SETS IN, PRETTY SOON I'M SINGIN'"

Late Monday afternoon, I was sitting on my deck in the sunshine with my little tot of gin and thoroughly enjoying everything my eyes could see and my ears could hear. I know I’ve mentioned more than once how much I’d love to sell my house and move someplace that’s smaller with a small yard. I know I’ve said that I feel like this is way too big for me to keep up for much longer.

As I sat there, sipping my gin, the lyrics from Credence Clearwater Revival's song, "Lookin' Out My Back Door" began to play. It was written by John Fogarty and I’ve always loved the song and the ideas it presents, especially the part about imagination setting in.

  Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy!
                Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch
                Imagination sets in, pretty soon I'm singin'
               Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door

There's a giant doin' cartwheels, a statue wearin' high heels
Look at all the happy creatures dancin' on the lawn
Dinosaur Victrola, listenin' to Buck Owens
Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door

Tambourines and elephants are playin' in the band
Won't you take a ride on the flyin' spoon? Dood-n-doo-doo
Wonderous apparition provided by magician
Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door

Tambourines and elephants are playin' in the band
Won't you take a ride on the flyin' spoon? Dood-n-doo-doo
Bother me tomorrow, today I'll buy no sorrows
Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door

Forward troubles Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy!
Look at all the happy creatures dancin' on the lawn
Bother me tomorrow, today I'll buy no sorrows

Well, I don’t have giants or statues wearing high heels or tambourines and elephants playing in a band, out my back door or even in my garden, but I like the idea of using my imagination and not being bothered or buying any sorrows.

As I sat there, still humming the song after it stopped playing, I got to thinking about what I’d be giving up should I sell and move. I can look around my almost private yard and see so many memories that bring me joy and comfort. How could I possibly leave those behind. I know the memories would move with me, but somehow it’s not the same as sitting in the sunshine and watching my memories play among the grass and flowerbeds.

And, those memories. Well, I could write for pages and pages and not cover every single memory I see in my back yard. There’s the boys playing on the grass, working in the garden to help me, wrestling with each other and their friends, family time barbeques, lunches, dinners…I think it and it’s happened there.

What about all the wildlife we harbored, if you could call them wildlife. We had chickens, rabbits, ducks, and even a goose that didn’t like anyone but John. Buford the rooster didn’t like anyone, even John, and had his neck rung after he attacked our nephew and almost put his eye out…I don’t think my nephew likes chicken some forty years later.

Chickens and ducks lay eggs and those had to be the best eggs I’ve ever had, no matter how they were prepared. And, I can’t forget all the birds and hummers that came to visit the feeders, the moles no matter how hard I tried to eradicate, rats and mice. We even put up a bat house, but as far as I know, we’ve never had one move in.

At one point when the boys were young, we put in a largish garden encircled by a fence to keep the chickens out. All the quarts of string beans we harvested and I canned. The lettuce, radishes, green onions, broccoli and tomatoes we grew and harvested. And this was long before growing your own food became popular. The apple tree that gave the best apples for so many years that ended up in pies in the freezer. The way the boys groaned when apple-peeling time came round.

We never grew much in the way of berries aside from the raspberry patch. John tried with strawberries in one of those tire enclosures, and I can still see him holding his harvest…two strawberries. One was very small and the other was kind of medium. I have a photo of him with his crop. We laughed a lot about that.

The water feature I decided to build without any idea of how to go about it. Still, I managed to dig a hole, line it with a black piece of plastic, go to the mountains and bring home buckets of rocks with which to finish my masterpiece. I remember how in the process of building this, Thor came home and had to take me to emergency. I’d done something to my toe and it really hurt. Somehow, I’d managed to dislocate one of my toes. The relief when the doctor injected a numbing drug was unbelievable. Initially, I thought I’d been stung by a bee.

That water feature continues to provide me with the sound of water as the little pump pushes the water up and out. Recently I added a little sun-driven fountain that pushes water up into the air, but only if the sun shines on the solar panels.  I thought I could discontinue my little pump, but the fountain doesn’t make much noise at all so I’ll keep the pump going.

Of course, there are all the plants that inhabit my garden. So many of them were gifts from family and friends and as I gaze at each one, I’m reminded of the provider. There’s also the various yard art pieces, some of which I made myself, others that I’ve purchased or that have been gifted by family and friends.

Sitting there in the sunshine, my little tot of gin at hand, I came to the conclusion that there are only two choices left to me when it comes to leaving this oasis. My first choice would be the coroner pulling into the driveway because the energy that makes me me has abandoned my body. The second and least favorite choice would be my sons informing me the time has come for me to be situated someplace else.

Regardless of which choice comes to fruition, I’m going to continue to sit on my deck, enjoy my little tot of gin and relish all the memories this little garden/ yard provides and hope and pray that at some point in the distant future, it's he coroner that arrives first.