A Titmouse Visits the Backyard Bubbler

In search of meditative tasks and little beautiful things in the garden

Boaz and Brooke’s backyard bubbler is officially open for the season. I’d been ignoring the task for the past few weeks but over the last few days I finally cleaned out the tubing, refilled the reservoir and arranged dozens of rocks to make something resembling a naturally-occuring-impossibly-located spring.

I spent an hour arranging rocks around that bubbler. There’s no science to it. AI can’t help with it (yet). Just one rock. Then another. Then move that first rock again. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with no end. It comes easier to Brooke, who arranged the rocks last year but this month I’ve been looking for meditative tasks.

It was my dad’s birthday last week. Next week is the anniversary of his death. It’s been two years without him. It’s hard to know what to do with myself in these seasons of grief. When I was sitting shiva after his death, a visitor – I can’t remember who – told me about their experience losing a parent. “It never gets less sad but it does get less raw,” they said. Today his death is just as sad as it was six hundred days ago but the sadness feels more familiar now. It’s not as shocking. It doesn’t surprise me with heaving sobs as much as it used to. Sadness floats in the air around me as I find another good meditative task: potting up all my tomatoes, peppers and basil that I grew from seed.

A day after the bubbler was up and running I glimpsed a titmouse – one of the cutest birds, in my opinion – taking a bath. I’ve been making an effort to notice the little beautiful things in our yard and neighborhood. With tulips now blooming in Pittsburgh, I’ve been trying to look extra close at every flower. The stalk and leaves all look so similar but the flowers can look so many different ways.

I’ve been trying to take new routes in the neighborhood as I walk to and from daycare to see what’s blooming in everyone’s yards.

I especially loved this yard that had bunches of tulips growing through a bed of native Virginia bluebells.

I planted a few dozen parrot tulips in our yard and the flowers have been opening over the last few days. They look insane. Like a tulip exploded with frayed petals reaching out in odd angles.

I was especially excited about these black parrot tulips I ordered from Breck’s that don’t look quite like they do in the catalog – in person it looks more like a creature out of the Stranger Things universe.

The redbud is blooming and I’ve been nibbling the flowers that taste, to me, like peas.

Last week the creeping phlox had three blooms on it. Now every single flower seems to be open.

Brooke and I were eating dinner in the backyard and saw the cutest bunny scrambling through the garden. We watched a robin nervously approach its nest – nervous because we were sitting nearby – which it had built on the trellis against our house. Can you spot it?

Nothing can fix grief. The sadness is still there. But I can surround the sadness with meditative tasks and little beautiful things and it helps.

I’d love to hear about the little beautiful things in your yard.

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And one more thing: To mark Earth Day this year, I met up with two local mascots to talk about the Pittsburgh recycling system. You can check out that segment here:

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