A Secret Garden

This gate has intrigued me ever since we purchased our condo in Portland, Maine ten years ago. It's only a block down the street, and I pass by it each day on my morning walks...as I did last week. I once tried to open it, but it was locked. Not that I would have entered the expansive lawn and sat on one of the inviting benches, but I was tempted. I still am.

When the snow is long gone and the foliage is lush and thick in autumn's glow, I experience a mysterious sensation as I walk past.
​I wonder who planted it. Who, if anyone, tends it? Does anyone ever unlock the gate, go in or out?

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I allow my imagination to be fueled by one of my most treasured books, The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I've read it three times, listened to the audio book and watched the 1993 version of the movie. When the book was published in 1911, it was described as a "children's novel," but has since become a favorite  of adults. I never tire of the engaging characters, some in need of renewal as desperately as the garden they befriend.

I imagine myself the 10-year-old heroine, Mary Lennox – newly orphaned – living on the forbidding estate of my reclusive uncle on the Yorkshire Moors.  While exploring the grounds, I come upon a locked door almost totally hidden by  brambles and vines .  With the help of a robin who shows me where to find the key, I open the door to discover an abandoned garden in desperate need of care.  As I become friends with a Yorkshire boy who knows the "wildness" of nature , together we clear away the dead and decayed, dig deep in rich, fertile soil and plant new seeds. Seeds of hope and healing, of connection and friendship. 

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In the spring  flowers peek through and over the fence lining the not-so-secret garden in Portland. Its green lawn and bright collection of flowers are clearly visible for all to see. And yet, as  I linger to smell their sweetness and touch their gentle petals, I wonder...
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Perhaps the next time I'm there, I'll knock on the door and introduce myself to our neighbors. I'll express my gratitude for their lovely garden. Maybe we'll sit on a bench and become acquainted.  A locked gate, opened.