Playing Fair and Being Kind

THE SECRET GARDEN

 I read THE SECRET GARDEN many years ago, maybe when I was nine or ten years old. I was mesmerized by the story and the characters. I loved being Mary and I was creeped out by the nightly cries of Colin in the huge house. When Mary found the garden and began visiting it regularly, I was thrilled and I wanted to be there with her and Dickson and later Colin. The story was magical. Many times since then I have always wanted to have secret gardens within the gardens I had wherever I lived. Any pocket of ground tucked away from the gardens that were in the open would be planted or shaped or trimmed carefully and secretly admired when no one else was around. I would plant shade-loving perennials or ivies which would be sturdy enough to survive competing weeds and other native species. My favorite in some places I lived a few corms from an oxalis plant would be carefully pushed into the soil to fend for themselves.

The oxalis is some rugged, let me tell you. I recall living in Ladson, South Carolina in the late sixties. I left there for Guam in 1971 with my family as part of my job. I loved that house and the mild climate that was wonderful for growing. I put a lot of my youthful energy into the place. I planted oxalis corms around the pine trees at the front of the house. Many years later, thirty-six to be exact, I was on one of my annual road trips during the winter. I had begun taking three-month forays toward the south and then west all the way to southern California. On this particular road trip, I stopped in Ladson to see the old homestead. It was on my drive back east. I stopped by the curb. The house looked weathered and the yard was a bit behind on maintenance.

I checked the road surface where there used to be a pothole that never was permanently fixed. We had a family dog, Bosun. Bosun was a huge black lab puppy and he always was with the kids outside playing in the street. I think it was Gwen, five years old at the time, who dropped her lollipop onto the hot street. A passing automobile ran over it or one of the kids stepped on it. At any rate the lollipop got pressed into the asphalt. It was pressed into the asphalt and was flat and level to the surface of the street. Bosun ate the lollipop. He ate about a pound of asphalt as well. The resultant hole never healed. It remained as one of those potholes that was located right where a passing car or truck would have to hit it. The noise of a tire disappearing into the hole and bouncing back out was ever-present. Many visits by the town road crew never cured the pothole. It became part of Bosun’s legend in that neighborhood.

The pothole was long filled and gone forever in the present day. I saw no trace of it. I turned toward the house and lo and behold there were pink blossoms under the much larger trees in the front yard. There was no mistaking the oxalis. They were still present and doing well.

Today I stepped outside in the rain to do a small task in the garden. I stopped afterward to examine those area of the garden around me. The rain was falling on my broad-brimmed hat and my jacket. I could hear the drops hitting the harder surfaces around me. The air was clean and moist and mild. My senses were in full enjoyment mode. I got the feeling of being very alone and private. I was in a secret garden. The sense I mostly got was that after completing the task I had gone outside for my presence was being noticed by some thing that I’ve not noticed before. There seemed to be a hush as if I had interrupted the whole of nature at some fun game or celebration. I felt the quietness of every living thing waiting for me to go back inside so they could continue whatever it was they had been doing. I was let in on the secret by all of nature and it was waiting for me to leave. So, I did.

G. M. Goodwin
11 June 2019