My Father's Forest, My Mother's Garden
4/3/06
My father's forest is wild and deep and strong, with massive trunked trees and huge green canopies. The floor is wet with dead leaves, tightly knit mosses and dewy, soft lichens clinging to bark. It is dark and cool where the trees are dense but also, in places, dappled with the light that makes its way through the foliage. There are creatures who live here, although I have not met them all. Snakes and squirrels, owls, bats, a bear or two and frequent wolves. Insects love the fallen logs and beneath, the earthworms churn up soil in their stomachs, defecating a richer mix. It is usually quiet, except when you walk and hear the snap of twigs and the crunch of fallen branches underfoot. After a rain, everything sounds spongey, fecund with now loamy dirt. In winter, when the leaves have fallen and more sun can hit the ground, it can be cold underfoot, but also soft with snow. And autumn, of course, the candy colored leaves swirl and drop all around you, like a cloak, plastered against your back, in your hair, against a cheek. You want to hold someone's hand in this place; to walk with them, to lie down with them and be silent as you wrap the forest around you. You want to be naked in this place. You want to make love in this place. You want to take and be taken.
In my mother's garden there are many different flower beds of various shapes, height and dimensions. They are well placed for strategic access to the light. The peonies take center stage, with their oversize, bulbous petal balls, seemingly too heavy for their stems. When they explode in the spring, you wonder if they will have room for each other, or will simply knock themselves down under the weight of their pride. Jonquils started in one place, upright dwarfs in yellow and white hats, and then spread out their troops. We're careful not to knock them over. The poppies, red and yellow and orange, do their weaving dance with those fuzzy, curving stems. Leave them alone to hug and wave. Some very sad looking roses try to make their way up the side of the house, but they've gotten in the way of the windows and had to be trimmed. Their thorns prick lightly as you try to organize them and you wonder what's the point for a few pretty buds. Now the bluebells are a sweet carpet out of which the Tiger Lilies loom, the tallest plant in sight. Huge orange petaled, black spotted trumpets, these watch over the rest of the garden family. They are handsome and haughty and don't like to be cut.. The bees love this place and a humming bird visits in flighty spurts. It is an open space, a place to lounge in, sip iced tea and, with care, play croquet. But it must be watered and weeded and tended to. It is unaturally situated in an fairly inhospitable climate zone; but you can make it work, especially if you bring in extra dirt to balance the too sandy soil. It has moments of beauty, this garden, then lays fallow for months. You know it will be there come spring and you know you will have to work very hard to restore it. It is a place to look at, to admire, to appreciate. It is a place to think.
In the forest of my father and the garden of my mother I have been scratched by bark, stubbed toes on roots, been stung by bees and pricked by thorns. My father built boats, chess sets and tuaght us to carve from the wood of those trees. My mother painted her favorite Tiger Lillies on canvas and kept her vases full all spring and summer. They are both gone but I visit these places. The garden is long overgrown and untended over the years. A stray peony or poppy shows up to remind us of their former hey-days. However, the forest endures; it needs no human intervention, except for preservation. It regenerates on its own. My father's forest and my mother's garden are places that I know. There's a well trodden path between the two. I will set up camp one day.
My father's forest is wild and deep and strong, with massive trunked trees and huge green canopies. The floor is wet with dead leaves, tightly knit mosses and dewy, soft lichens clinging to bark. It is dark and cool where the trees are dense but also, in places, dappled with the light that makes its way through the foliage. There are creatures who live here, although I have not met them all. Snakes and squirrels, owls, bats, a bear or two and frequent wolves. Insects love the fallen logs and beneath, the earthworms churn up soil in their stomachs, defecating a richer mix. It is usually quiet, except when you walk and hear the snap of twigs and the crunch of fallen branches underfoot. After a rain, everything sounds spongey, fecund with now loamy dirt. In winter, when the leaves have fallen and more sun can hit the ground, it can be cold underfoot, but also soft with snow. And autumn, of course, the candy colored leaves swirl and drop all around you, like a cloak, plastered against your back, in your hair, against a cheek. You want to hold someone's hand in this place; to walk with them, to lie down with them and be silent as you wrap the forest around you. You want to be naked in this place. You want to make love in this place. You want to take and be taken.
In my mother's garden there are many different flower beds of various shapes, height and dimensions. They are well placed for strategic access to the light. The peonies take center stage, with their oversize, bulbous petal balls, seemingly too heavy for their stems. When they explode in the spring, you wonder if they will have room for each other, or will simply knock themselves down under the weight of their pride. Jonquils started in one place, upright dwarfs in yellow and white hats, and then spread out their troops. We're careful not to knock them over. The poppies, red and yellow and orange, do their weaving dance with those fuzzy, curving stems. Leave them alone to hug and wave. Some very sad looking roses try to make their way up the side of the house, but they've gotten in the way of the windows and had to be trimmed. Their thorns prick lightly as you try to organize them and you wonder what's the point for a few pretty buds. Now the bluebells are a sweet carpet out of which the Tiger Lilies loom, the tallest plant in sight. Huge orange petaled, black spotted trumpets, these watch over the rest of the garden family. They are handsome and haughty and don't like to be cut.. The bees love this place and a humming bird visits in flighty spurts. It is an open space, a place to lounge in, sip iced tea and, with care, play croquet. But it must be watered and weeded and tended to. It is unaturally situated in an fairly inhospitable climate zone; but you can make it work, especially if you bring in extra dirt to balance the too sandy soil. It has moments of beauty, this garden, then lays fallow for months. You know it will be there come spring and you know you will have to work very hard to restore it. It is a place to look at, to admire, to appreciate. It is a place to think.
In the forest of my father and the garden of my mother I have been scratched by bark, stubbed toes on roots, been stung by bees and pricked by thorns. My father built boats, chess sets and tuaght us to carve from the wood of those trees. My mother painted her favorite Tiger Lillies on canvas and kept her vases full all spring and summer. They are both gone but I visit these places. The garden is long overgrown and untended over the years. A stray peony or poppy shows up to remind us of their former hey-days. However, the forest endures; it needs no human intervention, except for preservation. It regenerates on its own. My father's forest and my mother's garden are places that I know. There's a well trodden path between the two. I will set up camp one day.
posted by Barbery at 1:07 PM
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