Each time I looked out the windows on the days following our yard restoration it caught me afresh. The slopes were shaved, the bushes tamed. It reminded me of all those boys whose mop of hair grows wild over the summer, and come September get a crew cut. You can see the back of their neck again. I could find my front walk, something that had been lost under victorious weeds.

One of the conversations that happened as a group of us stood leaning on shovels was about the dead tree. It seemed even deader than it had been last spring, if such things come in levels of gradation. One couple recounted that they had had a forest of half a hundred saplings felled from their land before they moved in. Now there are flowers in abundance. Color. Light. I drove by their home the other day and saw butterflies dancing. 

I know nothing about lumber jacking, and it was purely theoretical at that point. But the next week I asked a tree trimmer for an estimate. I am a grown up and would not embarrass myself by overreacting when he gave a number. 

I failed. 

That was enough cash to go on a cruise. Three cruises. It could fund a modest car for the twins who expect to be driving next year. But it will instead be relegated to the removal of brittle and rotting wood off of our property. 

There is more than one way to look at it. The cost is less than the repairs on our roof would be should the next fierce storm rip it up by its expired roots. It is less than many people spend ripping cancer from their hammered bodies. Less than rehab, for anyone whose life has been invaded by addiction.

John was, as usual, calmer than me. He understood the impact of old windows and made the decision five years ago to replace them. I thanked him often in my mind last February when the house did not feel like a wind tunnel. He realizes the importance of  car maintenance, and hands over payment to our mechanic, when I would rather be spending it on things I can actually see. 

One of the people who buzzed our bushes told me that it is a spiritual practice. Pulling our noxious behaviors out by the throat. I will remember that when the crane arrives, and a gutsy, bearded man with a saw over his arm brings down a hundred foot white pine whose season is past. 

Who knows what beauty will fill the empty space.