Oh, you're a hedge

The 2 1/2 block walk from my kids' bus stop to our house passes through an overmanicured suburban neighborhood. It's neat. It's orderly. It's stultifying.

And that shows you what I know.

In the no-man's-land between two of those suburban houses stands an arctic willow hedge. Arctic willows are a fast-growing, cold-tolerant bush; around here people often plant them to conceal electrical boxes. The willow hedge that we pass every day stands taller than me and wider than my outstretched arms. Wispy, wavy limbs have begun to reach across the sidewalk. It needs a haircut.

As it turns out, inside the willow hedge is a space large enough for two children. Blake and Sasha can conceal themselves utterly; except for their whispers and laughter, you'd never know they were there. Every day they run ahead of me to slip inside the hedge and then, as I wonder aloud Where could my children be? BOO! They leap at me.

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We have two willows beginning to hedge in our yard, too. The quail like that space. Some mornings we watch two dozen quail or more cluster under those willows and then, when they deem it safe, pass through to feast on the clover in the grass.

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Gregory Smith in the magazine Clearing (Jan/Feb 1996), "The development of an ecologically literate citizenry ... may be linked to regular, unstructured experiences in wild places (both urban and rural), much as the development of reading skills depends upon contact with books and adults who read them." Urban, rural — and suburban, too.