"it's as wick as you or me"

When I was a little girl one of my favorite books was "The Secret Garden". I loved it so much that it was the very first professional musical I saw and I actually had a 'secret garden' in my backyard for years. I received a small 'piece of earth' from my parents to plant whatever I liked. Unfortunately my garden was mostly in shade which limited what flowers I could successfully grow.

However, that did not stop me and in behind two Juniper bushes at the back of our yard I planted shade impatients, hollyhock, tiger lilies, Easter lilies and much more. I went to the nursery with my mother each spring to pick the flowers that I would nurture for the summer, I got books and video's on gardening and I used to get up early on Saturday mornings to watch gardening shows instead of cartoons. I had my own spades, my own gloves, my own watering can...everything I would need to keep my garden 'wick'. For many summers my garden was my obsession, especially the act of keeping it 'secret', I was never had a tree house or a fort when I was a child so my garden was my own space, my hiding place, something I had created.

However, one summer, without telling me, my father pruned one of the bushes in front of my garden (insistent that they way that you get something to grow is by cutting it) and it never grew back...exposing my garden for everyone to see. I was LIVID. It was MY garden and it was a secret, I didn't want to share it with anyone, I didn't want anyone to come in and I didn't want people to criticize it. However, in retrospect I wonder why I was so upset...Perhaps it was just because I was a child and I didn't want to share or perhaps it was because of the book, I mean, it was called the SECRET Garden. However, I suppose that I didn't really pay attention to the last part of the book....

"The spell was broken. My uncle learned to laugh, and I learned to cry. The secret garden is always open now. Open, and awake, and alive. If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden."

We should all open our gardens for everyone to share in.