Secret Garden

Solitary Spaces

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. - Unknown

Growing up, we never had the best house on the block or the most money, but I had one thing that nobody else had.

A secret garden. My solitary space.

It was tucked into a narrow spot on the side of our rental house in Balic-Balic (this was pre the two-for-five home on Fountain Street in Sampaloc). 

I was only four at the time and had no siblings to play with, as First Brother was only two, a Mama's boy who napped with Mum in the afternoons.

So what did I do?

I'd venture out toward my sheltering spot, curtained with the cadena de amor vine. I'd tear a couple of branches laden with heart-shaped pink blossoms for a crown. Blue forget-me-not flowers which were abundant alongside the house dangled from my lobes as earrings. 

Where the acacia tree grew, I would hunt for spiders that were laced onto a web. 

Oftentimes, I'd be distracted on the path ahead by some white stones. They were smooth and would fit into my palm.

Close by where rain water had gathered in a puddle, I would poke at the wet dirt and sniff its scent, loving its smell as others might love the smell of Formosan roses.

I just loved those afternoons when the bandera espanola stalks stood sleepily in the sunshine.

When the air was clean and silky I could see the tips of the mayana leaves bleached to pale yellow by the sunshine.

When everything was completely calm and the day was still and mild, preserved as if made for no one else's, but my solitary pleasure.