yard work

I'm sitting in the soft spring sun of Mediterranean Turkey, with my 21st century laptop, while my neighbors, seen and heard, are clearing their yard for forage with a 19th century technique. They are reflecting on my screen. The elder woman carries the unique physique of a natural life. Her upright back is gently bowed from years of what I see before me, in reflection. She's bent over at her hips, knees steady but not locked, and swings a sickle at the grassy base while her left hand provides tension for a clean cut. Her back is perfectly perpendicular to her legs, like a deep bow. It is not a clean swing, but a methodical motion of the upper arm. More like a hack really, but with rhythm and purpose; like a ritual, static dance.

At my feet babbles a brook. Yes, a brook. Sounds nice doesn't it? It's a front. Its function on this property is none other than to babble, but of great irrigational use to our neighbors. This is a western household that has transplanted itself to this village, with a few grape vines and fruit trees scattered about to help mask its true identity. I feel like a time-traveler, sitting here, capturing the past on my device, and I suppose I am; just as anyone is when they leave the future of the city for the past of the villages.

Their 19th century property is the equivalent of the 21st century yard we pay someone, or work ourselves, to simply look nice. The idea of an appearance-only yard would seem absurd to these women. Why waste such space and fertility? “Grow something you can use to feed your family, or at least sell,” they'd say. Instead we pay and work for there to be nothing. “Trivialities from the future,” they'd say, if that can be said in Turkish.

As I watch, and imagine, all this reflectively unfold I entertain visions of a simpler life. A rural life in the future. A life of my own doings and responsibilities. Self-reliance and sustainability. Pure nonsense and romanticism of course, for I know no such life, and would likely tire of it before the blisters healed. It's so easy to idealize a life you don't have, or haven't experienced, like we do with the past. Us romantics. Like much in life, what we think we truly want seems only to disappoint in its realization. Or maybe that's just the over-privileged American in me, never satisfied with more but always wanting it. Maybe one day I, we, can align our needs and wants for the future with the simplicity and appreciation of the past.