Finally

I've only been working at this project for over a year....

The pine trees in my back yard had been slowly dying off, the result of numerous assaults - incorrectly planted by the landscaper from the start, improper pruning by someone who was supposed to know what he was doing, drought, disease, insects, too much shade from a neighbor's growing maple.  Finally, I had to admit defeat and give the OK to get rid of all but two of them.  I was distressed - there's nothing quite like having to take down a tree.  Or, trees.  They provided the perfect amount of privacy from the neighbors without feeling fenced in.  It took 15 years for them to get to this size.  Now what?

After plugging away at a landscape design for over a year (getting landscape bids, discovering that no one really wanted to deal with such a piddly job, not wanting to spend a ton of money, visiting nurseries, asking anyone who was interested in giving an opinion, etc.,), I finally came up with a game plan and found a reasonable solution...

I'm pleased.  It feels like it reflects me, and makes my backyard a haven again.

The whole process reminded me of my cancer journey.  Never in a million years I would have been able to envision that there would be fruit after such a devastating experience.  But there has been.  Good fruit.  Unexpected fruit.  Deeper roots.  Peacefulness.  A knowing.  An understanding.  New priorities.  Different motivations.  Realigned values.  A deeper desire to be kind to others.  Being OK, even in the midst of not being OK, with my limitations, both old and new.  An intensified commitment to integrity and transparency.  A settledness that can only come out of a cliff-edge experience.  Freedom from having to worry about what others think of me, or feeling the need to do what makes me look spiritual vs. actually being spiritual.
Even though my body is still repairing and recuperating, even though my heart still bears scars of the ordeal, and even though I'm only part way through the journey back to health and wholeness, there is an ever-growing hope that this experience might indeed produce even more beauty than what could have resulted had I not walked through something so agonizingly difficult and bewildering.

Finally....