The Smallest of Wild Spaces

Last night on my way home from work I was thinking about wild spaces in city landscapes and how easy it is to under-appreciate them. I'm not really talking about public parks. I mean the patchy little areas of scrub trees left to grow wild along the roads and highways to provide sound barriers between the houses and the cars speeding by. I'm talking about the random splotches of a forested quarter acre gap between some city streets, where one back yard meets another. There are several of these spaces around my home in the middle of suburban central Ohio.

It's a nondescript Midwestern city in most aspects (other than our underappreciated magical ancient Hopewell Mounds), but I realized yesterday that I take for granted that instead of living where yard meets yard with no end to tamed spaces, there are some wild spots right on my own street. The house across the street from mine has a small forest behind it, and if I walk one road down, there's a scrub field full of wild plants and a few trees at the end of the dead end street. Sadly, most of this forested area is technically private property, so I can't just stroll across my street and go looking for mushrooms in the woods. But I do wonder two things.

First, I wonder how much having wooded land (no matter how small and patchy) around may help to influence and comfort me, even if I am not consciously aware of its effect. I take for granted how beautiful the sunrise looks when the colors of the sky are shot through with the black silhouettes of tall trees. I worry for the safety of deer I spy walking across front yards, but I am also thankful for the random sights of the wild.

And second, I wonder what other kinds of creatures are drawn to these unusual tiny parcels of wild dropped into the middle of humanity. What sorts of faeries appreciate being able to retreat to a wooded hollow at night, but still have their pick of houses to explore and mortal lives to investigate and effect? What sort of invisible micro-stories are going on right down the street from me, fey both seelie and unseelie and those inbetween vying for spaces in the small groves of wild brush and scrub trees? So many stories of the fey either take place in the deep woods, or on city streets. But what about the places in the middle?

And as I write that, I remember that faeries are drawn to liminal spaces. And what's more liminal than a thicket on the edge of highway and home? A place of travel next to a place to stay? For all I know, this unassuming strip of trees at the end of my perfectly forgettable street in my utterly ordinary city might be brimming with secret magical activity. And for that matter, so might yours. What else might be happening right under our noses, with all of us too busy with our lives to notice?

A portrait taken in the wild field one street over from my house.