I made yet another late night visit to the sit spot. This time, though, instead of focusing on the sky, as I had been doing the previous two weeks, I focused on the ground -- the soil beneath my feet. In all honesty, there isn't a whole lot of it, at least not the exposed kind. Over the past few years, anything resembling dirt has been covered by brick, bark, rock, or greenery. It isn't that I hate the sight of soil, but our backyard wouldn't be a socially acceptable plot of ground if we didn't protect its modesty by clothing it with landscaping.

I wish I had seen what the land had looked like before it had been cleared and graded for a housing tract. Was it an orchard or vineyard? Was it a farm or ranch? Was it simply an open field?

The only holdovers from this land's previous life are the trees that stand in the front yards of the houses at the end of the street. They are older than everything around them. They're the neighborhood elders, likely spared by an arborist who deemed them worthy due to their trunk diameters.

I tried to imagine what the area would look like if the land not covered by houses or streets had been left in its original state, unadorned by fences, fountains, patios, barbecues, pools, non-native plants, and ground cover. It was easy visualizing those things gone. It was hard envisioning what would take their places. It was even harder imagining what life would be like in the neighborhood. Would people still feel the need to sculpt their surroundings? Would I? Or would we all be content to leave the land alone and in its natural state (a.k.a. its birthday suit)?

These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I sat and stared at the bricks beneath my feet and the glow of the solar light on the bark.