Place Blog 3

Place Blog #3

I walked into my back yard on Monday around 2 p.m. so I could see it in full daylight. I had the day off from work because the office switched its February holiday from President’s Day to the day after the Super Bowl. Many people had asked HR for that day off once they learned that Pittsburgh was going, so HR sent out a mass email explaining the change. I don’t care about football, but having the day off was nice.

The way to and from my place was a bit dangerous. I’d chosen to walk over the tracks that two young girls had created when they trudged through my then untouched front yard just to ask if I wanted my sidewalk or driveway shoveled. I had told them no because I didn’t have any extra spare cash, but that resulted in the driveway and sidewalk being covered in three inches of ice. Walking to and from the car is always an ordeal, and avoiding it this time was a smart move. Luckily, when I reached my bridge, I discovered that it was bare of snow, so I was able to stay completely on my lawn instead of walking over my neighbor’s driveway.

When I arrived at my place, I was struck by the monochromatic world. The sky and snow matched perfectly—a dingy white. Little did I know that it was raining—the small invisible rain that can’t be seen through windows. It turned the snow and ice into slush, but my land bridge and bits of the back yard were soggy grass. I could hear the rain patter against my neighbor’s gutters, along their house’s siding, and against the back of my hood as it gradually turned to freezing rain. An hour later, it would turn into an icy mixture and by evening, it would be a solid snowy drizzle, like the world was placed under and open packet of powdered sugar. But at that moment, I could also hear the rain splattering onto rocks and wood from where the neighbor’s gutters ended their downward route to allow a miniature waterfall to travel the rest of the way to earth. Nearby, my own gutters were leaking from the very top, and great drops of water like translucent bombs spattered the brown and pale green grass a few feet away.

Toward the actual back yard, the snow had melted away from the black Craftsman wheelbarrow, leaving it exposed, alone, and—because it was no longer under something as all encompassing as the snow—dejected. The color of the red bricks against the garage that matched the world’s dingy white had deepened and was stark against the snow. I looked for the cat tracks I had seen before and found them as large indents from where they had melted and then been covered over with new layers of snow and ice. But there were at least five or six fresh tracks, some that intersected with the original ones, and others that went off in seemingly random directions. Yet each one led to the open garage door.

As I stood there, the back yard was filled with the scent of wood smoke. I tried to locate its origin, but couldn’t find any plumes to guide me. It wasn’t until I reached my car that the scent turned from wood to steak, and I wondered who in their right mind would grill steaks outside in that weather.