She bought it for the view.
Moving to town was hard; everyone who’s lived in places where you witness the sun rising and setting over earth’s rim knows. You still listen for gravel’s crackle under tires going down the lane. You ache to watch sky come close to land and breathe green life into her.
Mama needed to still reach out and feel a bit of that country when she drove down her long lane stretching, drove away in a dust cloud to town. So she bought on town’s hem, where the stitch of asphalt falls way to a long skirt of green grasses swaying.
Screws hold street numbers to the bricks over the garage door and the mail slot next to the front door clangs open, shut, every day around two, but Mama washed dishes overlooking Herefords grazing in the dappled shade of the willows, clumped close where the river bends. Cars drove down her street, and sometimes she hears sirens blaring, but she eats mashed potatoes, meat and gravy, looking out at a singular white mare chewing slowly by the willows, tailing swatting flies, the woods fringing a field of leafy soybeans. Mama still felt the land, felt close to us, felt those soiled roots where she came from.
She hadn’t heard of the building permit till she had washed three weeks of meals at that sink. I was there the day the man who applied for the permit walked by, met her on the driveway, mentioned that he was going to build a shed behind her, cutting off that green skirt.
I stood in the doorway, leaned hard against the jam. Mama managed words, something about living 30 years on the farm and that view making the move to town manageable. Choked out that she wouldn’t have come if it weren’t for those fields comforting, calling.
“Money can’t buy a view.” Mr. Perkin shrugged his shoulders, turned toward the neighbor’s door and the next breaking of the news.
Wasn’t long before the neighbors passed a petition. Mama decided instead to bring cookies, flowers, to the elderly Mr.Perkin and his wife, offering her best wishes. She stayed while they showed her the plans, nodding, smiling.
She sat through the hearings at town council, and the appeal to the provincial level, the briefings of how Mr. Perkin could build in three other locations on his land at the other end of the street without interfering the view of any of the neighbors, how no other property owners had implement sheds for RVs on their lots, how Mr. Perkin had sold these lots twenty years ago with the promise he would never build behind the owners. Things change, and so does a man’s word.
The next door neighbors went west for weeks, right after the hammering began. Watching those stud walls slowly go up in front of the windows and brick up over land and trees and sky smothered. They beat a (temporary) escape.
I wasn’t expecting what I saw when I drove in sometime last week, came directly around the back of Mama’s house, wanting to see if any frayed green still clung.
Within steps of the property line, an eight foot grey fabric vapor barrier sheared off 30 feet of verdant life that just last week rolled from here down to the river and away the other side. The asphalt roof poked another 15 feet into the blue. I raised a hand, wanting to brush it all way, shake out leaves and blade and emeralds growing. I grieved for Mama.
I found her in the kitchen, at the sink. I’m not sure what to say. “Well, Mama…” She turns. “I’m sorry… I saw it, and I’m sorry. ” I’m searching her eyes.
Mama smiles, grabs my hand, and pulls me towards her and the kitchen window.
“See?” She’s beaming. I look out the window, confused. From in here, looking out the kitchen window, I don’t see a barricade clipping off life. The only view’s out on a blooming profusion of pink fuchsias.
She’s giddy. “I can’t take away the shed. But I can choose my own view!”
I lean in over the sink, closer to the glass, and try to figure this. “You stood on top of the deck railing? And leaned all the way over there to hang a hook? How did you get it into the overhang?” I crane trying to see better. “And then you balanced up there to hang that flower basket?” I can’t quite envision it.
Mama happily nods. Affirmative.
“Why look at a wall when I could choose flowers?” She laughs, radiant.
She’s right. And I’ve chosen walls. Do I count the times I have chosen to stare out at obstacles, chosen obstructions as my spiritual landscape? I have to ask: Why ? Why choose that soul view?
· Do I like fuming over things I can’t change?
· Do I like being sad, distraught?
· Do I like ugly vistas?
What if I went home and hung the true vine, the bright morning star, the radiance of God’s glory, in front of some unsightly walls I’ve been looking out on?
Looking out at Mama’s profusion of blooms, I realize I have forgotten: I choose my view.
The fuchsia erupts close to Mama’s window pane, little sparks of pink falling, lighting, and I remember.
I choose joy.
I choose Jesus.
For when I choose to “look full in his wonderful face… the things of this earth grow strangely dim in light of his glory and grace.”
Lord, remind me, that I choose my view. And cause me to choose You. “But my eyes are fixed on you, O Sovereign LORD…” Psalm 141:8
Photos: Mama’s old view, new view, and the view she’s chosen
