Back yard stuff

Last Sunday Jonathan went out with his EA for a few hours, so I took a quiet early morning walk.

I enjoy exploring some of the hidden paths in town, little back alleys and lanes that you would never know existed if you weren't on foot. The one in the picture above goes from behind a parking lot, down a small hill to a green space with trees in the middle, then out to a large park and field behind what was once a school.

These paths often extend behind the back fences of homes, and sometimes you can see the stuff people store or hide back there. I've seen tires and other car parts,  swing sets and lawn furniture, carpets and couches, building and plumbing supplies, bikes. 

It can be hard to tell at just a glance what the "plan" -- if any -- might be for these things: whether it's stuff they want to keep but have nowhere else to put, or stuff they want to get rid of and haven't gotten around to dealing with.

We all have stuff like that, don't we. Some of it's literal, tangible stuff: for example, we had an old flowered couch hanging around for five years (!) (in the basement actually, not the back yard) until we finally disposed of it a couple of months ago when our neighbour was taking a load to the dump with his truck.

I imagine we all have a lot of intangible stuff hanging around, too. Projects we started and abandoned. Routines that we follow out of habit because they are comforting but that aren't really serving us well anymore. Relationships that we've haven't tended to in a long time -- or that we've clung to for too long. Dreams that we've placed on the back burner but haven't given up on yet.

It's hard to know what to keep and what to let go of. It can sometimes be easier just not to deal with it. And even when we decide "OK, it's time, I'm ready to get rid of this," we might not be able to get the metaphorical flowered sofa out of our basement or back yard and into that truck all on our own. We might need some help with it. It might not be as easy as just making a decision.

Walking along these back lanes is a good reminder for me not to judge the stuff in other people's back yards -- literal or figurative -- because I have my own. We all do. Some of us are just better at hiding it than others.