Life in the Yard

I’ve been living in my parents’ yard for a lot longer than I expected. When I arrived in April it was chilly, by July it was hot, and now it feels chilly again. When I travel by bike, I try to flow with the seasons like a bird outflying a storm. This is the first time I’ve lived in a tent in one spot long enough for the seasons to change around me. 

I’m not the only odd creature living in my parents’ yard. There’s also a woodchuck, a friendly rabbit, and some rowdy opossums. The woodchuck is fat and hairy, and likes to peek out from a hole in the woodpile. The rabbit is more social. I say hi to the rabbit almost every morning when I leave my tent, and it wiggles its nose at me. 

The opossums, on the other hand, are little night monsters. They spend most of their time crashing around the rhododendrons when I’m trying to sleep. Sometimes I shine my flashlight at them, but they don’t care. Last week one crawled under my tent fly and started licking a bowl I’d left there. I guess that’s one way to wash your dishes. 

The yard isn’t particularly quiet, but it has become a place of calm. I sleep on a comfy air mattress inside a nest of sleeping bags and blankets. My solar light hangs above me, charging itself through the tent fabric. And my portable power station powers my phone and laptop. I also have access to the house, of course, but the tent is my one personal space that I get to call my own.

The seasons are changing and my mom is changing too. In April she could still talk, and she could walk with a walker. Now we lift her out of bed in the morning and into her wheelchair. She communicates with an eye-gaze machine–a computer that tracks her eyes as she chooses letters on a screen. We have an amazing team of CNAs who help provide 24 hour care. And my mom’s friends come by every week to read, bring treats, or spend time.

We go on adventures and have our mishaps. Last week I drove my mom to a park for an evening walk, and when I opened the van door, the whole thing came off in my hand. By the time I banged it back into place, it was dark out. I snapped a picture of my mom in her wheelchair in the middle of the dark parking lot, and when I showed it to her later she laughed harder than I’d heard her laugh in a long time.

Sometimes misadventures are the best adventures. Sometimes a tent is a room of one’s own. And sometimes you don’t know what to do but you do the best you can.