The beautiful story of the secret garden almost makes me sad. There is an exquisite, gaping need that a secret garden can fulfill, which is as sharp as it is meaningful. Why does it need to be a secret? Why isn't there another, more welcoming garden. As a kid I read the book, watched the movie (the best one with the beautiful music) and dreamed of my own key that would unlock my own garden. But what is it that makes one want possession of a garden.
People need places. They need secret places, adventurous places, places to challenge them and places to be comfortable. Maybe a secret garden is a place of ultimate privacy. A place like those darkly colored places in your mind or imagination which only you know about. A place that is safe, because nobody will ever find it.
But the story makes me sad because it doesn't show the other places. Wouldn't an open, sunny, welcoming garden be more cheerful, more joyful, more friendly. Wouldn't this, I might assume, be more fulfilling in its splendour than the garden that was closed off from the world. Wouldn't a welcoming, open garden be a sign of life, a celebration of activity. A PART of life. A secret garden somehow feels too separate for me. Too separate from life, and somehow unattainable.
But we all need those secret places, perhaps, as much as we need the public. And if the comfortable garden can't be found, maybe a secret one can be made somewhere. Maybe we need them both. Where I live now I can't have the garden I'd like, can't have the homestead I'd like, and I have no vegetables planted at all. But I am, slowly, burrowing my way through the deep underbrush, fighting through the thorns, to make paths to my own secret place.
