The Garden

The Garden

When I plunged my trowel into the clay soil of my Oregon garden, I believed that I could make colorful and fragrant flowers grow and fill a space around my house with evidence that beauty could be called forth from the earth by complying with its elements: touching the soil, turning it over so that it could breathe, loosening tight roots so that they could reach down and embed themselves, arranging spaces to show off the beauties in their best light. I spent many years fondling the earth, massaging it with mint compost and fertilizer, defending the beauties from weeds and other invasive threats. I would finish my work, body aching, and feel as though all muscles had been stretched and lungs replenished with the fresh and pungent air, but...wondering why my mind still prowled, restless, unsatiated, seeking more than earthly elements.

I raised my children with equal enthusiasm and exertion, listening for every nuance in their conversation, making sure that wild things were tamed without dampening vital spirits, encouraging, feeding, stroking, berating, all those things that come naturally to mothering, which need no lessons, and no rewards.

I praised the classical gods of music, listened to Bach at Christmas, Mozart while paying bills, lilting arias, heart-rending duets, all the riches of the world's finest musicians and most gifted composers. It felt right and wonderfully civilized - I was surely setting a good example for my children and upholding the primary posts of civilization by shunning television and favoring the classics. The restless mind murmured discontentedly in the background, never quite stilling the music, refusing to let the music dominate; tolerating all those attempts to prettify the person who gardened, cooked, raised children and listened to music and read books of the highest quality.

Curious, though, that the authors fascinated me more than the books. I could read endlessly about Virginia Woolf and then plow through her novels; I sat entranced at the life of Delius but was mildly interested in his sweet music. I read novels searching for clues of their authors, stared at paintings wondering how and when their creators breathed and ate their breakfast; listened to music as if to hear the sound of a soul at work. It was hard work looking everywhere in the known world except inside myself.

A lover wandered into my garden and distracted me. My head was turned by his dark one, his bright eyes, his quick smile; but most of all, his words, like jewels in a silver dish, like the music never heard but always sought, like the wine too rare to drink, the dish too rich, the shimmering, soft fabric that held a memory from a time and place forgotten but cherished. The lover pierced my heart and drew blood. My heart slowly and inexorably emptied. I watched as the garden, the flowers, the music, the family, all slipped away in a river of spilled blood and anguished tears.

The words no longer came from a lover but they lingered, and I turned them over and over, examining them, smoothing them, feeling them like one does a piece of fabric or gnarled wood. They translated my empty heart and my broken spirit, they were planted on paper for me to tend; I nourished them with empty spaces and love which no longer had an object. I smelled them, turned them over, wrote a poem, and then another. And then they belonged to me, and to my voice and were able to stand alone, without heartache, without praise or blame, or reward. They multiplied like forget me nots in spring, which, once planted, spread their wanton glory in every available space.