I look at today’s waxing and see a dragon… I wonder if he’s slain or slumbering or maybe silently guarding hoards of treasure… I laugh at that thought as I remember being asked a question first thing this morning – Where’s the pot of gold?
The other driver arrived by bike this morning and saw I didn’t have my car. Karen? Why didn’t you call me? I’d have brought my car and given you a lift home? I laughed at his questions and fixed my eyes on his electric powered wheels – Hey! Gizzuh go! He drops the seat for me and I weave around the car park in wobbly circles going faster and faster pretending I can’t ride as he shouts BRAKES! BRAKES! IT’S GOT BRAKES YOU KNOW! I aim straight at him to stop a cm from his toes and laugh Oh yeah! Found them!
He asks me how I will be getting home and I tell him I’ll be walking. He questions my sanity and says what on a rainy day? I point up into the sky behind Hey! RAINBOW!
He asks the question and I tell him we’re stood in gold! I tell him that today is indeed a good day to walk and yet again he calls me crazy… I smile that he must be warming to me as Crazy seems to be an improvent on his old name for me – Fucking Cow… OK… Time for work…
Work done and I’m walking home thinking I am indeed in a pot of gold… The light could be better but I take photos anyway as I go…
I walked home thinking about gardens… The difference between front gardens and rear gardens…
I think about my rear garden, my outdoor inner sanctum, the heart of my home that is outside of the house. I think about how it’s changed over time, over the 28 years that we’ve lived here. When I moved in, it was neat and tidy and prim and proper but someone else’s idea of what a nice garden should look like… My garden now is full of rescued plants and mostly trees… The huge magnolia that Mr S planted as a gift for me, many many moons ago. He used to bring me flowers until I told him cut flowers make me sad, that I don’t like watching them slowly die over 2-3 weeks… When he planted a tree for me, I remember thinking OK, this guy is pretty committed…
My garden has been through many changes over the years, taken up by children’s toys and swings, filled with swathes of washing lines… Croupier uniforms put out in rotation… Baby clothes pegged out… Rows of pink dresses, school clothes, red and grey then black and white… Therapist’s whites, gypsy skirts and fancy dress… Changes of clothes echoing changes in lives… Though with the constant bass line beating through of Mr S’s black, always black, fading black, black t-shirt… There are few things in life that exist without perceptible visible change but Mr S’s choice in t-shirts is one of them…
I think about how access to my rear garden is by invite only… How people always stop in their tracks a little as they enter the space… People always pause… They slow down and look around and maybe notice quirky hidden things but mostly they’re surprised at how the city noise seems to disappear… How unexpectedly private it feels… It’s a place where I stare into space, where Mr S meditates, where I often sleep in Summer, where Mr S feeds birds… Where fires are made, guitars are played… A place to paint, to photograph, to sit on the ground and read tarot, to listen… To birds on the wing or to hold space as people let go of what weighs heavy in their heart or what grieves their soul… It’s a place where many secrets have been told, safe in the knowledge that they go no further… But mostly, it’s a place to just sit… To just sit and be… Rear gardens are sacred treasures tucked under the dragon’s wing… There’s beauty there but it’s guarded, it’s not for sharing with everyone…
No, beauty for sharing with everyone… Now that’s what front gardens are for… Beauty that spills over the fence and into the street for any and all to walk through…
So maybe now you’re wondering what my front garden looks like? Well, I guess it’s a unconventional beauty… Again, there’s a tree planted for me by Mr S… During Summer it’s a wild mess of leaves and people often tut tut and ask why I don’t get rid of it… Pfft! Some people! Come Winter and leaves drop and it comes into its own… A few years back, one Christmas Eve, there was a knock on my door… It was one of the very rare Christmases where snow was thick on the ground and of course on my tree… My tree festooned with multicolour fairy lights. On my doorstep was a student from China, asking to take photographs of my magical tree to send back home… That made me smile. That’s what front gardens are for… To make strangers smile… But I guess beauty is a strange thing… On the way home I found that I’d taken a couple of photos of atypical beauty… I guess my bush belongs with them… Some people might see, scruffy garden, dirty van, dead stuff…
I see interesting reflections… Organic art and hmmm… A dragon’s nest… I guess if you see it, you see it…
ETA just after I wrote this I noticed that the post had come… Today is Mr & Mrs S’s 27th wedding anniversary. I open the envelope to find a gift. Now, gift giving is a contentious issue in our house as since receiving the electric tin opener 26 years ago, gifts to me have to be pre-approved or more often declined as nope there’s nothing I really want. This year I gave a little on my rules and said OK… You can buy me something, though I set in place a very limited budget because bad gifts are one thing but bad gifts and – You spent HOW MUCH?! Are next level Virgo hell of why? Why? Why… So I’m glad that Mr S is at work so I can open the envelope without worrying about my face going into wtf? mode… Honest to god, I smile nearly all the time but I’ve never been able to fake on demand… Anyway… Turns out all my worst fears and worries were for naught… Turns out the Man’s done good… I open my envelope and my new piece of treasure is a dragon…
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What a day to be alive! I’m not going to have to slay Mr S after all…
The pure and blessed way 