The grass between the kitchen door and the northeast garden has gone thin.
I noticed it this morning, coming up from the beds with a basket of leeks, when my boot found the same pale line.
A strip of packed earth about a foot wide, bare in the middle, curving where the ground drops away from the terrace. Last night’s rain still stood in it.
I did not plan this path.
When I drew the kitchen exit, I drew the walk from it to the greenhouse: a straight run of flagstone, nine paces, due east, true to the door.
The garden I treated as an afterthought, a handful of beds, reached by a few steps off the terrace.
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I remember the first spring there were only beans and onions, and strawberries along the wall. The stone held the afternoon warmth there.
I went down every morning, eager, and some evenings besides. The beds soon multiplied, and the garden stopped being something I visited and became something the kitchen needed.
Squash through the autumn. Kale that survives the first frost. Tomatoes staked taller than I am. Most of what reaches the table now has come up that line first.
There were weeks I walked it because the work was waiting. Weeks I walked it because I had walked it the day before. I cannot name the morning it stopped being a choice, and I suspect I would not have noticed at all if the grass had not kept the record for me.
I rarely walk to the greenhouse by the route drawn in my plans.
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The flagstones I cut for that original walk are still stacked against the kitchen wall, under a canvas gone green at the folds. Twelve of them.
I stood beside them with the basket on my arm and looked at the two paths, the one I drew and the one my feet made. One runs straight. The other bends, and has never been wrong about where the slope will hold a boot.
I glanced at the kitchen windows before I lifted the first stone.
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I carried it down to the worn path and set it where the earth is thinnest, then stepped onto it to see whether it would rock.
It did not.
The other eleven are still under the canvas.
I went inside and washed the leeks.
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This letter is now part of the Conservatory — those who find one often need another.