Beautiful Catharsis

   

I had a dream a few weeks ago about a garden I used to go to when I lived in Tallahassee- it had been a long time since I had thought about the place. This dream reminded me that time can slip through your fingers, this then sparked a tiny story which I had to write down. It's personal and a first attempt at fiction. But as we are all writers, I'm sure you understand that once I have an idea I have to either write it down or think obsessively about it (which would lead to insanity). 

Beautiful Catharsis

          40 years sinceI have been back, returned to this old haunt of mine. This place is in me and Iam within it. I am forever here; it is pleasantly and effectively inescapable.I revisit with my old images and old memories. So long I have been parted fromthis world, without ever stepping through the black iron gates and beneath theperfect Ivey arbor- until now. I have at last returned to the garden.

          My mother and Iplayfully walked down these dirt paths winding through this beautiful Edenbefore the anxieties of adulthood. Running our fingers over the droopingMagnolias trees, their limbs so full of blossoms they struggled to support thefull load of its blooms.

We broughtbooks to read in our favorite sections of the garden, providing peaceful hoursof growth. Warmth of the sun and the trinkling of water-fountains supplied mewith the perfect environment for growth, as though I was raised in a rosegarden.

          A dock wasanchored in the middle of the lake. I loved floating on my back as the wavespushed me towards the dock. Mother sat on the strong roots of an Oak Tree whileI swam. I never asked her what she thought about, she was simply my mother.

          I had brought mylove here. Sharing this garden was exciting and strangely spiritual. Uponarrival I began to tell him the old stories of my mother and me, showing him myfavorite sections and walking down the hidden paths.

He and I hadwalked together in love. This garden of mine was inspiration for love, erasingany semblance of sadness. We had sat on a bench in front of a long, thin bluepool. We always hoped to return, then life started and the years past by us theway they years do. 

           As I walkthrough this garden, which used to be my wonderland, I am pained by what I nowsee; grays and browns of a large withered wasteland. The place, which had onceencompassed feminine grace and beauty, is now brutish and ugly. There are noblooms, no radiance, just desiccated leaves, brown meadow, and collapsing waterfountains. 

           I go to the spot where our bench was, his and mine. But there is no bench nowor any proof it was ever there. It is gone away and lost from me, forever.Nothing is as I remember it. I am overwhelmed with a devastating sensation of sadness.I see this place now realizing my own age and mortality. As I reflected,the more this old garden began to symbolize me, my life. Through tears I strainto search for life, hopeful, desperate for the loveliness I remembered.

           Moments pass as I walk toward the lake where my mother and I had sat, anxiousto be where she had once been, where we had once been together all those yearsago. There, finally, was the lake, full, alive, and spectacular. My heartlightens and my breath releases with a sigh, and tears streamed. This was a much-neededpurgation of my heartache and I feel transported.

           The given name “Mom” is called out and echoes through the trees and moss. I amawakened from this terrible daydream. My heart lifts to my throat and I amlightened once more. I recall why I am come back to this place. I brought my daughter to see the place I had for so long told her about. This was where herfather had once been and where my girlhood days were spent with my belovedmother.

            I feel that every naked tree she passes blooms with Magnoliasand every bush explodes with Hibiscus. Water fountains begin to spit water inspurts and then there is steady flow. For a short time, I had lost mywonderland and could not find it again. Now it shows itself to me and I amglad. I swear the winds whispers to me, but I do not know its words.