Portrait: Frances Liau
Note: I wrote the following essay eleven years ago, but for various reasons, never published it. I was thinking about it today as I wandered through my own garden. I don't have pictures of Frances's garden, but it lives in my head, and maybe, after reading about it below, it will live in yours, too. I pull up to Frances Liau's house on a weekday morning, and she greets me from her front step. She tells me that today is a good day to come as that very day she had paid her final installment for her mortgage, and the house is now 100% completely hers. Thirty years ago, when Liau moved in, the whole front yard was lawn, punctuated by a eucalyptus. The east edge had a giant bamboo hedge running the length of it. Now, the lawn is gone, replaced by a collection of natives—weaving across the yard in shades of silvery gray and chrome yellow, the eucalyptus is now a tall, white-armed goddess, and the bamboo hedge still rushes like water in even the slightest breeze. As we talk an...
