Don’t need that patio furniture no more…ooooh no! Sing it with me. #Memoir #Thisisreal

It’s been nine years, seven months and 14 days (give or take) since we bought our house in the Bay Area. Our house is a modest 1,100 square foot single-family dwelling that sits on a monstrous 7,000 square feet lot. This means that we have some land, baby! This is very rare in this area of the country where housing is usually small, expensive and in shortage.

Boy was my husband, Erik, and I excited when we saw our huge back yard! So, what do we do with this unicorn – this rare find? My husband and I had ideas…so many ideas…I can’t tell you how many ideas…but let me try: plant a garden, raise chickens, build a mediation labyrinth, develop a raised-deck retreat with sleeping area, create an in/outdoor living space with a seven-piece rattan sectional and barbecue grill. And as a piece de resistance, create a multi-use entertainment area where we can play horseshoes, bocce, and corn hole.

We were so excited and filled with ideas because our house was a wonderful and pleasant change from the small apartment in San Francisco that we lived in before. Though bigger than the average apartment in the City, our former abode didn’t have much room for us to really stretch out. It was a subdivided space where the landlord took one apartment and made it into two. The kitchen and the living room was one room. The master bedroom was oddly shaped with windows looking into the neighbor’s kitchen. And most notably, there was a lack of private outside space.

But now with our house, we were no longer limited by a cramped apartment; the sky was the limit. So, we let our imagination soar. We even thought about raising goats to naturally eat the grass in the backyard. We pitched our “organic grass maintenance” idea to our neighbors and actually got buy off (we have colorful neighbors)!

Then came the rub, the actual work of getting it done! It was one thing to have ideas, it was another thing to make it happen. Planting a garden meant we had to clear and plow the backyard. Raising chickens meant that we had to get a chicken coop and also build a fence that was dug in three-six feet below ground so that raccoons couldn’t get to the chickens at night.

And there was picking out the chickens, should we get White Leghorn or Rhode Island Red breed? We also needed to research the type of wood we would use for our different entertainment projects. What style of the in/outdoor living were we also going for? There was a lot to figure out!

Moreover, there was the cost of things. The materials for the raised-deck retreat was going to be high because it included wood, nails screws, sandpaper, stain, and lacquer. The seven-piece rattan sectional was at least $1,000 or more. We needed even more wood for the multi-use entertainment area. We realized it was going to be a lot of work, research, and money. That much outside space no longer felt freeing, it was now a big 7,000 square-foot burden.

But we weren’t going to be discouraged. We were going to get our dream space, starting with clearing out the backyard. My best friend, Jen, came over to help me shovel gravel that the previous owner had abundantly poured across three-quarters of the backyard (apparently, that was to make the backyard aesthetically pleasing). The point was to get to the soil underneath so that we could plow afterwards.

After several hours of work in the sun, tired and famished, we looked back to see our progress. Sadly, we had cleared out less than two percent of the space. Jen and I looked at each other half smiling and slightly disappointed. But vowed to continue another day.

We went at it again on another weekend but failed to make a dent.

After this failed DIY approach, Erik and I decided to hire professionals to make some headway (and because I didn’t want to torture Jen anymore, though she offered to come back if I needed her to…she’s a one-of-a kind friend). The pros got some work done, they removed all the gravel and rototilled the backyard, exposing a dense clay soil. The type of soil that you can’t grow plants in.

The disappointment set in. We had bought our place intending to have an urban garden and retreat. But with more than $2,000+ poured in already, we realized that it wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought.

With this realization, we decided to abandon our backyard dreams. And more important things happened – a family. Three years after moving in, our daughter was born and two years after that our son came along.

We spent those years busily feeding, changing diapers, and running after very, very fast little feet.

All the while, our backyard laid unattended. It had tall green grass in the winter and spring, and even taller dry brown grass in the summertime. But it did get a little care from my mom during the warmer seasons, mostly by way of pulling up grass as a form of fire prevention.

We spent very little time in the backyard even with our kids. We just didn’t feel like it suited our needs. I mean, it didn’t have that garden or entertainment area we wanted. So, we went to other places, like going to nearby open spaces or parks to hike and play on the jungle gyms. This was how we spent our outside time. That is until the novel coronavirus (COVID19) hit and everyone was forced to shelter in place.

In this current environment, our backyard came into the foreground again. Our kids were going stir crazy being inside all day and wanted to play. The safest place, of course, was our backyard with its abundance of space to roam around. Plus, a recent addition – a 14 feet trampoline – couldn’t keep the kids away.

But they also spent a lot of time outside of the trampoline, just enjoying the backyard: conducting research by picking up and examining squirming worms (or wormies as they call them), making art by sculpting mud from the recent rains, exercising by endlessly chasing each other in the high grass, learning horticulture by watering our lone citrus tree, and using their imagination by climbing bubble mountain (the big pile of the gravel we removed).

It’s funny how much time we actually spend in the backyard now. In fact, we look forward to it every day as a way to be outside but also as way for us to spend time together. My daughter and I started to play catch with old tennis balls. I didn’t even know that she enjoyed it and how she’d been practicing her catching skills at school before it closed. My son and I pretend to be zombies and chase the family around. And my husband and I spend time talking while watching the kids.

I’d always thought that my backyard needed landscaping and patio furniture before I could fully enjoy it, but now I feel differently. I discovered that my backyard (among other things) had always been enough. This reminds me of the Jewish song, “Dayenu” sung during Passover. Dayenu means “it would have been enough” and it is sung after each stanza of a 15-verse song. It is about being grateful to G-d for all His gifts to the Jewish people, and if

G-d had only given one of the gifts, it would have still been enough.

I had been so caught up in the potential of my backyard and also dragged down by the burden of it, that I forgot to have the simple appreciation for the space and the people that share it with me.

So, during this time of Passover, I want to share my own version of Dayenu.

· If He had provided us a home. Dayenu!

· If He had provided us with outside space. Dayenu!

· If He had given us a best friend, JRo. Dayenu!

· If He had given us a mother, Melly. Dayenu!

· If He had given us a daughter, Asa. Dayenu!

· If He had given us a son, Sean. Dayenu!

· If He had given us a husband, Erik. Dayenu!

This post is dedicated to Ruth Shorer of the East Bay JCC, Berkeley who I am so grateful to have in my life.

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Adelina Elo is the creator and writer for Successfully Trying, a blog housing her creative writing and memoirs. Adelina, a marketing communications strategist by trade, has always wanted to be a writer but was too afraid to do it. Now as a mother of two she wants her children to find their way in life through self-exploration and the act of doing without the fear of failing. To serve as an example for her kids, she created Successfully Trying.