In my backyard was a large mound of dirt. It was there when I bought the house – the previous owner had torn down the old house and built a new one, complete with a full-size basement. The dirt that was removed to make room for the basement had been piled at the back of the property and was now covered with grass and weeds.
The mound was almost ten feet tall, and I often climbed to the top to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, the surrounding trees and houses (which were all ranchers in my neighborhood) were a bit too tall, and at certain times of the year I couldn’t quite get a clear view of the horizon. But I often sat there anyway, watching the sun sinking lower in the evening sky and thinking about things. I even caught a sunrise once in a while.
One morning, I was awakened by a bird singing outside my bedroom window. It was late spring, and nature was in full swing outside. The sun had not yet risen.
I sat up, opened the blind, and looked outside. The sky was beginning to glow in the east. To my right, the western sky was still dark.
As I looked for the source of the song that had awakened me, I saw a dark-colored bird standing atop the mound of dirt and grass. The bird hopped around as it sang. It was a beautiful little song, and I decided that I didn’t mind being awakened by such a treat.
The bird stopped singing and flew from the mound to a pile of old bricks at the back right corner of the property. The bird landed on one of the bricks and resumed singing. I listened some more, then started thinking about the pile of bricks. They, too, had been left there by the previous owner.
Several years back, I had used some of the bricks to build a new walkway leading down from my front steps to the sidewalk. I had chosen the ones that were in the best shape but there were still hundreds, maybe even thousands of bricks left that were in decent shape.
The bird flew back to the mound and once again resumed its song. I was no longer paying attention to the bird, however. I was thinking about the bricks. It occurred to me that I could build a platform on top of the mound using some of the bricks. Then I would I have a nice place to sit to watch the sunset.
My mind began to race with ideas. I thought about the different ways I could build the platform. It could be round or square. I would need to level off the top of the mound. I could build a set of brick stairs leading to the top. I walked into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, still thinking about the mound and platform.
After I finished preparing the coffee, I walked out front to fetch the newspaper. I brought the paper back in to the kitchen, took it out of its bag, and spread it out on the table. Then I poured myself a cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, and sat down to read the paper.
The front page contained the usual local new stories, as well as a few involving the CIA, the president’s latest poll numbers, and the never-ending concerns in the Middle East.
I began to read, but none of the articles interested me enough to hold my attention. My mind kept drifting back to the mound and the bricks in the backyard. For some reason, that seemed far more interesting to me than whatever was going on in the world.
I grabbed a notebook from my desk (the very same one in which I had written out my accusations against God), took out a pencil from the desk drawer, sat back down at the kitchen table, and began to sketch some ideas for my platform.
Over the next hour, I made many sketches. I drew round platforms and square ones. I drew mounds with one staircase, mounds with staircases on each side, and even one with a staircase that spiraled around from the ground up to the top. After an hour and several cups of coffee, the kitchen table was covered with sketches. And by the end of that hour, I had finally found a design that I liked.
The sketch I now held in my hands was a square, pyramid-like mound with steps covering the full length of all four sides. The bottom three steps on each side were three bricks high and four bricks deep. The next seven steps were the same height but shallower, only two bricks deep, and then the top three steps were the same as the bottom three.
I found through my sketches that this combination of deep and shallow steps gave the mound a curved profile. The slope of each side rose gradually from the ground, then became steep for seven steps, then became gradual again before reaching the top. It was sort of bell-shaped, with a flat top.
I held the sketch at arm’s length. I loved the smooth curve of the sides. It looked somewhat like a pyramid, but a pyramid with the peak removed and the sides curved rather than straight. The longer I looked at the sketch, the more I loved it. I wanted to get started right away.
Unfortunately, I had a late-morning appointment with Anne. The mound would have to wait.
I ate a bowl of cereal, took a quick shower, and left the house at nine o’clock. The meeting was in Anne’s office, a drive of 45 minutes. On the way, I thought about the mound and decided that I would begin working on it as soon as I returned home.
The meeting with Anne was short but productive. When I returned home early that afternoon, I walked straight around to the back of the house and began to look more closely at the mound. The shape would have to be changed slightly –it was almost round, as you would expect a big pile of dirt to be. I would have to shape it into a square as I went.
I spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through bricks. I wanted to get started on the platform, but first I had to sort the good bricks from the bad ones. I realized that the sorting process would take a while, and that I probably wouldn’t get around to placing any on the mound that day. But that was okay.
The bird that had awakened me that morning came back from time to time, still singing his song. It was springtime. He was calling, I assumed, for the girl of his dreams.
I had dreams of my own.
I had a new project, a new inspiration. I wasn’t thinking about teaching or about lawsuits. I wasn’t thinking about science or religion or Moses or the Israelites.
I was thinking about building something new, something different. I was thinking about dirt. I was thinking about bricks.
I was thinking about building a mountain.
My very own mountain.
