Dreams of a Lifetime

One summer, several years ago, I was up at Aunt Rosemary and Uncle Dave's floating sheetrock in their new addition. In the evenings after supper we sat in the cool, tile floored den under the fans. Uncle Dave always had a movie picked out for us to watch. I am sad to say Uncle Dave is gone now and missed. He is remembered by all who knew him as ever cheerful. Uncle Dave was a hard working man with a happy soul which inspired me to be upbeat and to love my work. I cherish the memory of every minute of the time I spent up there with them working on their house. They were awfully good to me. From the time I was a kid, some part of their house was under construction. It seemed awfully ironic that when Uncle Dave died, he had to be interred in a temporary crypt until construction of the mausoleum they had purchased was completed. I think it is a "Condo of Eternal Rest" sort of thing. I think he would have seen the humor in it.

Aunt Rosemary has a large yard and I think she still puts in her garden. She has the whole place nicely landscaped. She has several real nice landscape picture books and I used to thumb through them on those warm summer evenings while digesting her fabulous cooking. I dreamed of having myself a yard to keep. Of all the books' usual pictures; the beautiful, flowering gardens and the acres of lush, green lawn, and of all the essays, of shrubs and trees and flowers and grasses and garden pests, the article that stuck was the one about development of a landscape plan.

I remember a particular author suggested a set of simple, colorful drawings to lead to a comprehensive, overall plan. The first drawing was of the existing area. Orientation of the sun, types and variety of the existing plants and overall lay of the land are noted there. After a discussion of the existing situation, the author leads you to another drawing of a construction plan where specific construction details, like walks or gates are shown. Lastly, a drawing of the finished landscape plan.

Based on the landscape design book I perused years ago, I produced the two drawings of this post. I found a glass shelf in the bathroom that was large enough and taped the black and white photo I printed to it. Then I taped a sheet of drawing paper over that. I sat in a chair with the glass pane on my knees and with a lamp between my feet and traced the outline. Simple and direct, huh? For the scale drawing I measured everything and drew it in on graph paper with each square representing 2'.

This method of blending the real and the imagined came together for me with relative ease. The hard part in this endeavor, and maybe any endeavor, is for Becky and me to sit down, imagine our desired garden, then put it on paper. For some reason there is always resistance to taking action. After all these years a big, deeply held dream dances in front of me. So why the hesitation? Maybe it is just plain laziness. Once the dream is given life on paper, the great universal power energizes matter and energy and starts to make the dream real.

I've been told that the great secret in life is that thought becomes things. Some great universal power energizes the deeply held thoughts which are believed and they begin to become real. That I am sitting at this computer blogging about our yard is this law of attraction at work for me. I sat alone in the dark for sixteen years, sighing and crying, dreaming this dream. Lo and behold my dream came to life. What was I crying about? I can't remember.