Life in the backyard Part I

May 20, 2020

After my hospitalization it became clear that I needed to be more intentional in creating a therapeutic physical environment for myself. 

I had tried, every month in 2019, to spend days out in the woods, camping mostly, which seemed to revive me enough to return to a room inside my family home.   

Since the start of my marriage separation I have lived in 5 different spaces at this home. As you might imagine I felt consistently restless. As I became sicker and sicker I stopped camping trips even though I knew they were important. I found myself 3 months into 2020 without one camping trip had for the year. 2 weeks before heading into the hospital I remember saying multiple times, “I’m not doing very well… I need to sleep outside.” It was a funny thing to say and got a chuckle from my mother and it was absolutely the truth. But my illness by that point had overrun me and I never managed to pull my sleeping bag outside onto the trampoline. 

Being admitted into a behavioral health hospital is by no means a vacation and for all the healing and help I got there my spirit was severely deprived of open spaces.  “Outside time” was never more than 15 minutes long and even then, it was a fairly small area. I remember literally sitting at the farthest corner from the door, up against the fence praying that the wind wouldn’t shift and send some cigarette smoke my way. My first “outdoors time” all I did was lean my head against the fence and will my skin to soak up all the sun it could. Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker’s Creek sat idly on my lap. A few choice moments were spent gazing directly down to take in as many different plants as I could. I wanted to see and save up those images, to take them back into the enclosed spaces.

As soon as I returned home the house and it’s rooms had changed in my mind. I can’t express how out of place I felt, especially at night, that first week. My old room was an especially unwelcome space. A week in my family and I put into action something that we had all known for a while: Mona needs to spend a lot more time outside. 

So, one afternoon my family helped me set up the 10 person tent and carry out a few pieces of furniture and some choice living supplies. I went through everything I owned (for the 3rd time in that year period) and again downsized. I boxed up anything seasonal or too sentimental or beautiful to give away at the moment and sent them up to the attic; two boxes I believe). 

I am profoundly grateful for a family network that sees me and wants me to thrive in whatever ways I can and who make moving furniture in and out of tents and an  hour trying to get an a-liner into the back yard (more on that in the next blog) an enjoyable process full of love and laughter. They are a balm more than they can know and more than I can reciprocate. 

Dusk and Dawn were more beautiful in the tent than I had experienced before and immediately became highlights of every day. In the evenings I could see the celestial lights through the thin layer of mesh and would often take a quick stroll around the yard and at dawn the birds sang so loudly it often woke me up. I could sit in my oversized chair and feel the setting sun on my face at find the moon through a mesh window if it rose earlier enough. At night I found great comfort in zipping myself in and hiding in the folds of that giant mess of sheet with twinkle lights over head and heated blanket snug against my lower half. 

During that time these words, written years ago, from the title track of my album Open Spaces kept playing in my head:

A friend told me once that she missed the sky//How can you know where you are if you can’t see the horizon from every side?

The tent became an important stepping stone for me on the way to Alaska the A-liner. This tent provided me with shelter as I slept outside and thin enough walls so that on a quiet night I could faintly hear the little stream that runs alongside the property.  

I didn’t realize as I was writing that song how deeply and desperately I needed the physical open spaces. 

I needed time to walk under the stars and to awake to those loud, loud birds. I needed time to feel moments of solitude— as much as one can living in a neighborhood setting. 

The backyard was the closest I could get to feeling a handle on where I was. Though, sometimes the trees have helped me to get lost at the right times for the right reasons too. Open spaces have expanded to include the sheltered reach of the tree branches and the expansive shadows they cast all around. I don’t see the horizon living outside but these tall trees and this open air will do. 

Until Soon, 

Remona Jeannine