04/26/2025
We don’t own a pool. Or a fancy patio. Or anything Instagram would call “a backyard oasis.”
But we have this.
And somehow, it feels like more than enough.
It started with a trampoline we were going to give away the springs were squeaky, the frame a little wobbly. But every time we mentioned it, the kids protested like we were suggesting we sell the family dog.
“This is where summer lives,” my son once said, dramatically flopping onto it like he was in a Shakespeare play.
One Saturday morning, I found my husband out there stapling old fabric scraps onto the mat. “Just to give it a second life,” he said.
By evening, we’d turned it into a canopy bed.
The kind you’d see on internet only this one had stories sewn into every inch.
The curtains were made from our wedding sheers.
The lights were left over from our daughter’s 10th birthday.
The pillows? One of them still smells like my grandmother’s cedar chest the last one she gave me before she passed.
And the cushion covers? Hand-stitched by a Tedooo app seller I met when I went looking for “something that feels like a hug.”
She messaged me back:
“Then I’ll send you one.”
Now, this little cloud of a corner is our family’s favorite place.
We have pancake breakfasts here on Sundays.
My daughter reads novels with her feet in the air.
And last week, my husband surprised me with a thermos of coffee and a note that said,
“You turned a trampoline into a temple.”
And maybe he’s right.
Because in a world that moves too fast and forgets too easily this space holds.
It holds our laughter.
Our rest.
Our growing kids and aging parents and long talks under the stars.
So no, we don’t have a backyard oasis.
We have something better.
We have love, stitched and tied and glowing softly through white curtains.
And when people ask where I bought all this I smile and say,
“Some of it came from my heart.
The rest came from people who put theirs into everything they make.”
