Honestly this story is going to be an extremely boring one — because it’s about “our own backyard”.

I’ve lived in this home for two years and I’ve never sat in the garden on the side of my back door.

How could it be?

Today I know why.

There was no table and no chair.

Yesterday my boys moved a table — an old school desk — and I put a white tablecloth on it and moved a chair that was always there next to it.

Suddenly it was a place.

I place a coffee cup a phone a siddur on it.

Why couldn’t I sit with a coffee in one hand and a siddur in the other before? I could’ve even put my coffee on the ground and the siddur on my lap.

Are these elements that make up a home?

I lean my arm on the table.

It invites. Come sit with me.

Before this moment the garden was an uninhabited jungle. Now suddenly it’s a place of peace to sit and relax.

It makes me wonder.

What other simple things stop one from enjoying the goodness — smelling the flowers?

Is it something so easy — so small?

This table in the garden is really an old metal school desk with a wooden top. And if it wasn’t that we needed the space in the basement it would never have landed here.

And I wouldn’t be listening to birds chirp while watching slits of sunshine.

I’d be inside in the merry-go-round that seems to endlessly spin as soon as you enter the door.

Breslovers are known to go out to the fields to daven. The say the grass and the trees pray along.

There’s something to it. The sounds of birds and trees — and my neighbor clanking as she washes the dishes.

Maybe the calm the peace is that everything going on has nothing to do with me or my own efforts.

I don’t feed the birds or water the weeds.

Yet they continue to exist. It’s clear we’re not the ones in control here.

This is the peace.

And peace can be boring.

And so can our own backyards.

But …

There is a story from Rabbi Nachman about someone who goes searching for a treasure and finds that it was always buried right in his own yard.

How many Jews go to India or China to learn the tricks of the other religions only to be sent back with the words that “the truth is in your own backyard”?

It’s hard work to relax.

Relaxation trips for example — half the trip is spent looking for something to eat or drink. The other half is spent looking for rest rooms or a place to sit or sleep.

And the whole trip you can’t wait to just get home to take off your shoes.

The Kosel is almost in our own backyard and we hardly get there.

During Pesach was the first time we went to the Kosel to hear Birkas Kohanim. We stood with our eyes closed and I felt at those moments they said the blessing that nothing in the world mattered — Hashem surely ran the world and the blessings were like a blanket of complete control and coverage. It was maybe the most peaceful moment of my life.

Peace in Hebrew is shalom: greetings arrivals and departures. Hashem should grant us with peace.

Later on this same morning as I discover my backyard my neighbor comes over to return a bag of milk.

She notices the table in the garden.

“Where did you get that table?” she asks.

“I’ve been looking for one exactly like it so I can sit on my porch.”

“It’s just an old school desk” — I lift the tablecloth up — “and it’s even cracked on top.”

“But it’s exactly what I need” she continues on.

And all the while I’m smiling because I’m thinking how it’s like Eretz Yisrael. At the end of the day the Land is some stones and sand but when people see it — they see there’s something there a certain peace they don’t even know what it is. Yet they fight for it and for us it’s already ours like our own backyard.