Where Exuberance Will Get You

I live in a jungle:

Technically, this is a zero-lot line house within spitting distance of the next zero-lot line house. The balcony wraps around two of these massive cottonwoods. We have an interior garden:

This is what it feels like when you walk out of the front door, through this garden spot, and onto the sidewalk:

I’ve over-planted the yard:

And I’ve extended the tiny yard by planting in the median between the sidewalk and the street:

I’ve unintentionally invaded the neighbor’s yard:

We can sit on our front porch and no one knows we’re there:

In case you’re worried, it’s not claustrophobic in there:

It all comes down to desire. I have plants in my yard because my grandmother grew iris, I passed spider lilies on my way to elementary school, my daddy loved Lenten roses, I fell in love with ferns when I went to Pickwick Lake the first time, I can’t get enough of hydrangeas, my uncle gave me a cutting from Mississippi’s largest fig tree (owned by my family) and from the rose bush my daddy gave his mother on Mother’s Day when he was a little boy:

I have exuberant desire and a small yard. So now I live in a jungle. Thank God our house is on the Mississippi River. Nothing I can do can top that.

here’s to creative synthesis . . .