the violet yard

I have always loved violets and the way they blanket the lawn in the spring. I had no idea that violets would be my backyard one day, as they are now. Our yard apparently is completely unwilling to grow much grass, due to years of being exposed to the towering pines on our property. We tried liming the hell out of the yard. The ground merely swallowed that and smiled, promising to do nothing more. The smile from it, was our yard knowing that I have a way with letting things be what they are and appreciating them for what they are, and not always trying to put up a fight. It is what it is. I have a yard, that is happily green and growing, and blesses me with a mist of purple every spring. Following this cheerful show, it gets mowed, grows more and continues on this way until fall. We have a wonderful green backyard that feels good under happy bare feet. It just isn't grass. It is wild and free and happy to be violet.

I grew up in a large white house set far back from the road. We had an expansive front lawn, wonderfully grassy, that was perfect for all sorts of running around and games that I would play with my siblings. Every spring one special area of the lawn in the front of the house would take on a violet hue. A hue that is only known to those lawns lucky enough to have such a beautiful weed. This occaision would be later followed by the dreaded first pass of the lawnmower, the little blossoms not to be enjoyed again for an entire year.

One spring, my friend Sophie and I spent one entire morning carefully picking violets and tying them into little bunches. After lunch, we proceeded to work our way around the neighborhood, knocking on doors and innocently offering our little nosegays for $1 each. That being about 30 years ago, it was complete and utter highway robbery, which some of our surprised neighbors paid. I think we really only sold a few, and those few were to women who must have just felt obligated to support our industrious effort I think.

Now, somehow compulsively, I find myself every year picking a large bunch of the wonderfully hued violets and putting them obediently into a little vase to be a little splash of spring inside the house.