Oulalie: Lights of August

It began with a silence. The sky was the periwinkle of one of his business shirts and I couldn't go back to sleep. Two years had passed and the dead wood was choking me...not to mention the plants.

It began with a little clearing, and turned into an all weekend all out symbolic excavation of the plants and revival of part of the yard. Hallelujah! And as with all good stories, it was not without pestilence, villains and risk of life and limb.

As my boyfriend bravely tackled the sprinkler system and hacked down a few increasingly sturdy volunteer trees, I dug and separated and replanted and re-soiled - and discovered the most evil rhizome that lay like chicken wire under the WHOLE 60 x 3ft zone. It was barbed and tenacious and seamed symbolic of all sorts of things. It felt SO good to pull it out, bags and bags of it like some old knotted dog, or a bobbly hand knitted blanket.. It SUCKED and I was determined to dominate...which I did until nightfall when I was bitten by a spider 7 times up my legs and even once on my butt. The next morning it was revealed...it must have been the devil himself as they all swole up to the size of my palm. It was VILE!

The next 2 days I wafted around high as a kite on Benedrill praying this wasn't a flesh eating venom and I wouldn't have to have a limb amputated. I needed distraction so I devised an outdoor lighting system for the yard...and went on to spear myself twice with 2 inch bougainvillea thorns and give myself a blister 1/2 the size of my pinky. What next...tetanus?

And now to the point. I survived (so far) and made lantern hangers out of the cut trees, found some of my tin can lanterns and created a GORGEOUS magic outdoor space.