Well in Front Yard

The Well in the Front Yard

LoraKim and I have a well in our yard. We got our water from there for our first few years. A couple years ago, we agreed to let the city switch us over to the city system. The well is still functional – there’s an outdoor spigot next to it which we could attach a hose to if we wanted. As long as it’s functional, it needs periodic inspection.

Our well is in the front yard, but kinda hidden behind some plants. So when the inspector was due to come, LoraKim left a note on our front door to indicate where our well could be found.

I came home after a long day a couple weeks ago. I was tired – feeling a little dried up, you could say. I was reminding myself that I’ll feel better after I get some sleep. I got to my front door and saw the little sticky note.

“Well in front yard.”

"Oh, how nice," I thought. So I turned and walked out to the middle of the front yard and stood there for a few minutes with the cedar tree and the dogwood and sweetgum and several oaks and the rather irregular not-recently-mown grass beneath my feet.

And it was well in the front yard. With troubles all over this weary world, at home and abroad, it’s well in front yard.

We’ve never watered the yard, and it seems to be doing just fine, though I know that our yard would be entirely impermissible to the homeowners’ association of a lot of neighborhoods. I didn’t have to stand there long before mosquitoes started to find me. And that was well, too. Just fine, really.

I walked around my house in the darkening dusk and stood for a minute in the backyard with the hickory, the maple, the magnolia, and more sweetgums and oaks, the grass even more irregular, and a big gopher-tortoise hole. You know what I found out? Turns out it’s also well in the back yard.

I thought: maybe I’ll put these sticky notes all over, wherever I go. On the steering wheel: "Well in car." At the office: "Well in office." "All’s well at the computer." On my pillow at night: "All’s well here." On the breakfast cereal box: "Contents well." On my shoe: "All’s well down here."

When I came inside, re-moistened, I told LoraKim: “It’s also well in the backyard.” She stared at me blankly for a few seconds, then started laughing. And I laughed, too.

Things are pretty well if I’m paying attention.

May it be well in your front yard. May that well be a fount of every blessing.
May we have peace . . .
Like a river.
May we have joy . . .
Like a fountain.
And may we have love . . .
Like an ocean.

Amen.

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This is part 5 of 5 of "All Dried Up."

Previous: Part 4: "We Can Do This"
Beginning: Part 1: "Flow Like Water"