A year ago, I bought a house, without really knowing how to buy one. The house is not big but the land is, only that it is not paved. This city is close to the sea and the land if of a sandy composition. Although weeds are abundant, to have a garden one has to buy soil that has nutrition. I am not patient enough to do be a farmer so I just let it be. When wet season comes, the yard is luxuriant, but in dry season, yellow is the dominant color. The only thing I do is to use a sickle to control the height of weeds. I do not root them, because their roots can control the sandy soil.
荒草夏而枯，冬而绿。我在木头篱笆上书写杜甫的诗，以配合这种自然景色。
The weeds wither in summer and turn green in winter. I painted a poem about wild grass by the famous Chinese poet of Tang Dynasty on the fence to match with the changing scenes:
Th weeds on the prairie
Grow and die once a year
The wild fire kills them not
The spring wind brings resurrection
They erode ancient roads
And press on to deserted towns
Now I see you off again
My feelings as thick as the weeds
The neighbor's house behind me is built on higher land so even this one story house looks like a two story house from my back yard, which is fully covered in their view.
In Chinese residence culture, yard is very important. My yard, though big, lacks privacy. On the left side of my house however, there is a piece of land that separates the house with the fence by quite a few yards. This space is blocked from the view of the neighbors behind me by a shed and thus claiming some seclusion. The only bad thing about it is that it is bare land, with only a concrete path running through it between weeds.
于是我决定把这里的裸地铺起来，造成一个小偏院。以后可以在这院子里看书喝茶，乘凉赏月。
I decided to pave the bare land to create a side yard in which I can read, savor tea, and enjoy the moon in a summer night.
Mind made up, I now had to find material. Home Depot is close by and it is easy to buy bricks, but I am very stingy. I went online everyday and finally found on craigslist someone who dug up her paved yard and had free concrete blocks to be taken away.
Yet, it did not look like a yard. There was no wall on the street side. The front yard has only a fence and anyone can see my "side yard". Besides, the original weeds disappeared after paving and the place looked lifeless. Finally, the side fence does not look Chinese at all.
I had planned to block the street side with a wall but before that, I hung several pieces of old window curtains, as if setting up a tent in the battlefield. When there was wind, the curtains, white, danced ghostly.
Then I painted the side fence white. I had thought about what style my side yard should have. Should it be red wall with yellow tiles, like the walls of the forbidden city? Or should it be grey, like that of the courtyards of old Beijing? After thinking back and forth, I decided that white is the color that costs the least. Besides, I appreciate very much the style of southern architecture of white walls and black roof tiles.
But I did not paint black tiles on the fence. It is time consuming to make it real. So I just used what paint I have to paint three windows of different shapes on the white-washed fence, and a moon gate. For the background of them, I painted the similar color of the house next door. If you stand away from the fence, narrow your eyes and look at the fence, with some imagination you can have a mirage of three dimensions.
Later, a friend of mine who did remodeling brought me an iron shelf, just of the size of two doors and a piece of wood board. With them I sealed off the street side of my side yard, leaving a gap for exit. At the exit, I set up another piece of board a few feet from it as a screen. This done, my side yard was complete.
It was not that I did not try to enjoy a cool night in the yard, but in Monterey, there is no hot summer to make coolness such an enjoyable thing. I cannot wait to put on thick sweater when dusk falls. Besides, if I sit there in the darkness all by myself, I appear a fool.
Although I painted a moon gate and classifi Chinese windows, there is no beauty coming in and out to drink tea with me and challenges my poems with hers. There is no smiling face of a lovely girl in the windows that makes me to lose my soul. I am not Ma Liang the magic painter and a beauty I should paint would be simply a painted cake to surpress my hunger. Finally, even though I might be a magic painter, how do I know the beauty I should paint would not be a beauty skin hiding a monster?
Readers may ask why I cannot invite my colleagues and friends to sit in my yard. It would have been possible 50 years ago. At that time, it was much fun to go to a classmate's home to do homework together. One of my primary school classmate's family had a yard, where our study group often met.We spent much fun time there.
It would also have been possible 40 years ago. I was in high school, a time when I was young and full of ideals and ambitions. With my classmates of the like mind, I often took a walk on the street discussing state affairs till midnight. If I had had a yard, it would have been utilized very frequently.
It is impossible now. Firstly, I am old. Second, it is now the times of wealth. The material request for social gathering has been raised. At least you should have a big sitting room, a sofa (better made of leather), a wide screen TV (because people nowadays do not talk a lot at social gatherings, so TV is the necessary gap filler, albeit for playing games.) I do not have such things. Moreover, the interior decoration should be high grade. Up to now I have never invited my colleagues for a house warming, because it seems to me that my house cannot hold people and visitors will leave after eating.作者: thesunlover 时间: 2012-8-14 11:25 照片 please...
