Once in a lifetime, once in a residency, one has the opportunity to decorate a yard for the first time. All of one’s memories and all available technology can run amok in this pristine theater of trees, plants, and structures.
One will have contemplated the theater since moving in as one’s personal property to do with what one will. With a liking for particular lights and certain types of ornaments, one visits the local stores to thoroughly investigate what is available. For one new to the experience, one is keen to pick over everything and make mental notes of what one can buy now, what one can come back for later, and what things one can contemplate, now that he knows about such things. How about the sets of lights without bulbs, for instance, that one can choose for among several different types and colors of lights? Combined with multi-outlet attachments for extension cords? Let the imagination work with these elements.
The big black pine tree in the front yard. Are there enough outlets to comfortably run a cord to wrap lights around the trunk? Or would one prefer simply to hang lots of plain, round, red/green/gold/silver ornaments? Say, 16, four of each color. Now, one has the tree to decorate, and sixteen balls, in sets of four colors. Should one space the bulbs evenly throughout the tree, so that the tree determines the placement of the bulbs? That would be a nice way to emphasize the preeminence of the tree. One can divide the tree into four horizontal sections and place balls of each color at even intervals. By using a square grid of four colors, one can prearrange to have the colors evenly spaced throughout. One can have the balls in four plastic bags, bring them up into the tree, and hang the bags on a branch halfway up the tree. One can them scramble up and down to the bags for the balls, and complete the work with just the one expedition into the tree.
The design will then be natural, graceful, elegant, and perfect. It seems obvious to suggest this process, but in the year that has passed since the last holiday season, most of us have learned the hard way that there is not a surfeit of natural, graceful, elegant perfection in the world. Nor will such a combination of qualities necessarily (if ever) result from following this process. The designer will invariably look at his work and notice the imperfect interval here, the obscured ornament there, the overly droopy lights here, the drunk cousin passed out under the tree over there.
Smaller trees with fewer ornaments lend themselves to simpler processes. A large apple tree might be provided for with two dozen small gold and silver balls, enough to create a nice ring around the perimeter of the tree. One envisions even spacing around the tree, and begins by placing the first bulb. He then walks to the opposite spot of the tree and places the second bulb. Between the two, another bulb. Walk to the opposite side of that bulb, and place its opposite bulb. One can always know that’s how one’s going to execute the task, and not bother with walking all the way around the tree so many times to place opposite bulbs, but some of us, especially we ritual-loving Catholics, enjoy the formality and ceremony of such an elaborate process.
Once one has placed the first four balls, it isn’t so necessary. Even if one is called away from the task, one can return to the task and complete it within the context one has already created, which will enable a shrewd eye to discern the pattern and continue the work properly.
Whether one creates the rings around the fruit trees and/or the ornaments throughout the four zones of the pine tree, space will remain. If one cannot resist another trip to the store for 48 purple balls, one can place those however one imagines: a square grid, three overlapping circles.
However it turns out, just wait ’til next year!