a deep and private place
If my inner self, my emotional life was a garden it would be riotous with colour. Chrysanthemums and peonies, scarlet poppies and tall henna flowers; fairy lights (or actual fairies!) between tree branches; the air would hum and shimmer with dragonflies and bees and nightfall in this garden would bring glittering, whispering things. Crickets and fireflies, clusters of tiny frogs.
There would be a labyrinth and a hammock and a secret hideaway. There would also certainly be some sagging fencing and cobwebs, menacing patches of bramble and obstinate tangles of ivy; some knackered Socialist-era play equipment and at least one orphaned shoe.
My garden has gates, but no walls. It is the kind of garden that welcomes visitors, that waves its brambles and its flowers hoping to catch the eye of other, similar gardens and inviting them out to play. It cries out for picnics. My garden has a natural exuberance, and it does not like hiding*. Hidden, it droops and wilts like a flower in the dark. It becomes overgrown with weeds.
Z's garden on the other hand, is a private place with high walls**. It is well-defended with illusion and sleight-of-hand and possibly the Tardis. Who, me? his garden says, and vanishes. If you hunt it, it's not there and you will never find it, because it's stowed in dimensions you cannot reach and this is vexing to a person fired by curiosity.
But the wily garden-hunter adapts to his quarry. Becomes unobtrusive and waits, quiet as a bird-watcher, patient as the photographer waiting for the last snow leopard. And then sometimes the garden appears. Glorious and fey as a creature in a fairytale. Unicorns cannot be tamed, mermaids cannot be possessed; deprived of their coats, swan-princes become the saddest men or earth.
Over the years I've found spyholes that offered glimpses of his garden. Chinks have been allowed to appear in its walls. I've even caught it natural and unselfconscious. Z's relationship with his children is a joy -imaginative and tender, funny and warm.
But the deeper he loves something, the more secluded it is. The only thing you'll see is a joke, or a flash of anger or fear. If you are loved by him then Z would go to war for you, defend you without question, would lay down his life for you. But he will never be able to speak of how he feels, because in his garden there is no language. Only reflections and dreams. His exclusion of you is not unkind, but it's near absolute and he has no reference system for how to change it, no more than a zebra has for becoming a plumber.
I've spent seven years with Z, learning how to love and relate by different rules, just as he has. My flowers and dragonflies have crept across the space between to set up camp at the base of his walls and a few times a year the walls dissolve and his garden shines for me, for a little while.
Sometimes these fundamental differences in us sadden me, make me feel lonely and excluded - just as they make him feel anxious and defensive. But most we learn to live with less and cope with difference. Most of the time it is enough to lean against the tall stone of the walls around him, to shut my eyes and feel the sun on my face and know that we are as near as we can be, in our separate worlds.
*Third house moon
**12th house moon.
There would be a labyrinth and a hammock and a secret hideaway. There would also certainly be some sagging fencing and cobwebs, menacing patches of bramble and obstinate tangles of ivy; some knackered Socialist-era play equipment and at least one orphaned shoe.
My garden has gates, but no walls. It is the kind of garden that welcomes visitors, that waves its brambles and its flowers hoping to catch the eye of other, similar gardens and inviting them out to play. It cries out for picnics. My garden has a natural exuberance, and it does not like hiding*. Hidden, it droops and wilts like a flower in the dark. It becomes overgrown with weeds.
Z's garden on the other hand, is a private place with high walls**. It is well-defended with illusion and sleight-of-hand and possibly the Tardis. Who, me? his garden says, and vanishes. If you hunt it, it's not there and you will never find it, because it's stowed in dimensions you cannot reach and this is vexing to a person fired by curiosity.
But the wily garden-hunter adapts to his quarry. Becomes unobtrusive and waits, quiet as a bird-watcher, patient as the photographer waiting for the last snow leopard. And then sometimes the garden appears. Glorious and fey as a creature in a fairytale. Unicorns cannot be tamed, mermaids cannot be possessed; deprived of their coats, swan-princes become the saddest men or earth.
Over the years I've found spyholes that offered glimpses of his garden. Chinks have been allowed to appear in its walls. I've even caught it natural and unselfconscious. Z's relationship with his children is a joy -imaginative and tender, funny and warm.
But the deeper he loves something, the more secluded it is. The only thing you'll see is a joke, or a flash of anger or fear. If you are loved by him then Z would go to war for you, defend you without question, would lay down his life for you. But he will never be able to speak of how he feels, because in his garden there is no language. Only reflections and dreams. His exclusion of you is not unkind, but it's near absolute and he has no reference system for how to change it, no more than a zebra has for becoming a plumber.
I've spent seven years with Z, learning how to love and relate by different rules, just as he has. My flowers and dragonflies have crept across the space between to set up camp at the base of his walls and a few times a year the walls dissolve and his garden shines for me, for a little while.
Sometimes these fundamental differences in us sadden me, make me feel lonely and excluded - just as they make him feel anxious and defensive. But most we learn to live with less and cope with difference. Most of the time it is enough to lean against the tall stone of the walls around him, to shut my eyes and feel the sun on my face and know that we are as near as we can be, in our separate worlds.
*Third house moon
**12th house moon.