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Writer's pictureLuciano Camilo

The backyard

Small houses and a vast backyard. The best description of my dear home. This place changed drastically since I was born. The ravine used to be lower and closer to the walls of our houses, with some arrack trees in between. I was probably three years old back then, but I still have misty flashbacks of that time, as well as of the afternoons sitting on the bed in the living room that daddy, mom and I used as a couch.

Years rolled over and new times came when I saw bulldozers and trucks crushing the earth and expanding our place. Shortly later my cousin and his family came to live in grandpa’s estate and with that the large red soil ground became a small extremely amateur football field. The improvised gates started with big rusty latex canes, two standing on each side of the “pitch”. Later we began building our own gates using wood sticks, screws and net. The ball ranged from tennis balls to actual semiprofessional footballs. I played against my cousin, against my father, against my friends, against my cousin’s friends, against my cousin’s father, under sunlight or rain. And I lost the great majority of the matches. Around 99%. It’s not a joke.

After sometime, I started playing football somewhere else in the neighborhood and the backyard then became just a backyard. For a long time in this new phase I could see nothing really special in that ordinary piece of my home but later as businesses and work occupied my days I began to miss it. I felt every day more the need to have sometime when I could sit on a stool on the scarce grass patch inside the area and just watch the boundless sky or the floating clouds on the mountainside.

During the last 16 months approximately, I had not more than 11 days during which I got the opportunity to enjoy the pleasure of walking on my backyard. A root of my personality, an outdoor space that feels more cozy and comfortable than inside my room. I’ve lived lately in several big family houses, with two floors or more, full of windows, rooms, fine furniture and comfortable sitting area. But none of these homes sounds more welcoming and vivid than my old sacred backyard.



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