The world-wide story about housing is true in every country. I cannot tell you how many gardens I’ve built in rental houses. I can tell you about rental flats costing $600.00 per month, and being paid $715.00 a month because I knew how to read and write. I can tell you about people with master’s degrees asking me how to spell words in order to “get to know me”, but I can tell you that, at long last, I found myself married to another person who could read and write and love trees, and classical music. But the poor man had unfortunately lived in places like New York City and Los Angeles, USA. He not only had a house that he had built, but actual acreage. He had lost his wife from a 54 year marriage. I had lived alone for 22 years just in self defense of the cupidities of modern life. So, I looked at his thistle and dandelion infested yard and said: “Here will I make my stand for nature”.
But, I must tell you, I was the possessor of a dark secret. Even though I had grown up in the Sonoran Desert of the US, I grew up with a grandmother who planted pansies and roses and current bushes (among other things) in that same desert. Because of this, I learned to see faces in the pansies, smell the fragrance of the “Peace” rose developed after WWI, and love all places fortunate enough to have that magical potion: water. How did that happen? Oddly, because of war: WWI, Act WWII. In your world, there was hell, while we dithered about over here. My Grandfather came out of retirement to be a civilian manager of logistics at the local Army base. My father became a bombardier in an American B-17 and flew from somewhere in Yorkshire to deliver chaos and death to the other side of Chaos and Death.
As a result of this, I accidentally ended up being born in an Army hospital. It also happened, that in that same era, an English gardener came to be a refugee at that same hospital. Upon hearing this, my grandmother, having been the first one in the family born in America rather than Cornwall, made this gardener’s acquaintance. And there in the American desert, they discussed gardening to their heart’s ease between dust storms. And here, 79 years later, I find myself, miraculously, at the edge of the sea, in a green land, surrounded by trees and planting roses instead of thistles.
I did not earn this earth, and when I die, I will not own a life. But I do own a tenuous tie to you through your magic doorways and love of the western counties. The world is not just or fair, but hearts can always be. I spend a lot of time at garage sales and second-hand shops to decorate my interiors, and accidentally, because of that have a lot of “antiques”. Because of this, after 62 years as a nomad, I now love in a very small house that looks richer than either of us are. And you, because you have labored to move loved items the hard way because of being an economic nomad, have an extraordinary home filled with treasures that are beautiful. So do I. What we have in common cannot be bought at any price: an eye for beauty, an understanding of a non-fiction life, and the gift of insight. I’d tip a glass with you, but my crystal is all gone, and I can’t afford champaign. Walk on, and so shall I, but let’s not fail to record what we knew. Someone else might benefit from it.
A good read. Maybe I could fit in at 86.
Patricia, I love the story and your flowers. As a perennial late-bloomer in some aspects, I've learned it's never too late to learn and experience something new. I've also learned that home is where you hang your hat, but I feel most at home in the rural countryside.Keep on walkin' and dig the trip!