As I stood on the porch, I suddenly shifted my focus and saw our yard not as the chaos brought about by landlord negligence, but as a patch of wilderness with sprawling ivy and a thriving rogue’s gallery of various misfit plants and flowers, some intended and some accidental, a feast for dragonflies and hummingbirds and a temporary entangled shelter for any manner of small creatures and ground birds. It’s been a struggle of a week emotionally and I’m hoping that I can find a better balance in myself by Monday, which is the start of a very weirdly-scheduled week with a holiday stuck in the middle of it just like the giant Christmas tree that is now growing over the porch.