'We've got to get ourselves back to the garden'

One thing I like about the new year is that I get to buy a new calendar. Last year I bought a Star Wars one, but for 2018 I've gone back to buying the one I usually get - The Secret Garden. It has pics of beautiful and peaceful garden-y spots. If there's a heaven, I hope that's what it's like - a garden. When I'm in places like this, even in my own raggedy yard, I feel safe and also expectant, as if some wonderful truth is about to finally be revealed.

Maybe I feel this way because it reminds me of my grandparents' yard, where I spent a lot of time growing up. They had a couple of acres, a little pocket of peace in the midst of a suburb, filled with fruit trees, nut trees, vegetables and flowers. Every day they worked in the garden and we helped ... we picked peaches and grapefruit, knocked almonds from the trees to peel and set in the sun to dey. There was a trellis with so many roses attached that it looked like a wall of flowers, and we would snack on the nasturtiums and boysenberries and figs.

When my grandfather died, my grandmother could no longer keep the place up and she sold it. It doesn't exist anymore - the house was destroyed and the land partitioned up and not even the address remains. It makes me sad to know that it only exists in memory now. So I buy a garden calendar and imagine myself back there again.
xx