When I lived in Chicago long years ago, I used to love walking through the alleyways between the blocks of apartment buildings that faced the street. Their stern brick fronts allowed no glimpse of the life behind their curtained windows, but the view from the alley was that of a village, as each back stoop revealed a little something about the people who lived there. Someone had a small garden. Someone else had a grill. Someone might have a collection of wind chimes or colorful banners. Some just a comfortable lawn chair with a side table for a beer good for winding down after work.
Then there was my brother and his Japanese garden. There used to be student exchange programs in high schools, and my oldest brother was lucky enough to be chosen to go to Japan. I remember my mother being worried that he would starve to death over there, as he was a very picky eater. But no. He fell in love with all things Japanese, including the food. I remember him visiting me in an apartment in Chicago not too longer after he returned and criticizing my living room. “The Japanese would not have tolerated this,” he said, indicating my board and concrete block bookshelves filled with paperback books. “They would have one shelf with only two or three carefully chosen objects on it.”
When he was finally able to buy a house in Chicago what had decided him on the house itself was the space that came with it. For a little bit extra, he was able to buy the vacant lot next door, and that was all he needed to construct the garden I suspect he had in mind ever since he came back from Japan.
I couldn’t imagine him actually doing it. All I’d ever seen him do in a yard was mow the grass. But he did it. It has winding walks and little water features. He planted fruit trees that are now full of bird feeders and therefore of birdsong. A stone Buddha sits in a far corner, visible only when you round the last bend before the back gate.
He married twice, and when his daughter from his first marriage moved in upstairs with her husband and eventually three daughters, his perfect Japanese house and garden were no doubt filled with more spontaneous activity than had been originally prescribed. It has survived wedding receptions and family reunions and the patter of little exploring feet. And it’s still there, still enchanting.
I don’t know if you can see much of it over the back fence, but if you stroll down that alley in the spring, chances are you will hear the birdsong and perhaps catch sight of tree blossoms that rise above the greenery.
As far as I’m concerned, my brother has added a slice to the myriad creations that compose one of my favorite cities. Looking down as your plane circles into O’Hare, you might never know that beside the Sears Tower and the Bean, there are thousands of back stoops representing the lives of a million Chicagoans, and that nestled somewhere on the near north side is my brother’s vision of a Japanese garden that he created and still maintains in the city he loves to call home.