Life, with the garden
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • • • Visit: April 2012
But then, I had to leave Time Out Farms. I will forever remember Jay and Portia, and what they taught me about horse logic. But I was meeting up with my friend Frida in Vancouver, and so, had to move on to the next adventure.
In Vancouver, I fell in love with Stanley Park. I Couchsurfed for the first time, staying on stranger’s couches and was amazed by the connections I was able to make over boardgames and TV shows.
And I went to the Nitobe Memorial garden, a traditional Japanese garden tucked in between a few ugly buildings and a small piece of forest with huge Douglas firs on the University of British Columbia campus. On a road nearby, there was quite a lot of traffic, but the moment I walked in through the gate to the garden, it was as if the rest of the world disappeared. The cherry trees were blooming, and the newly opened leaves were bright green. In the middle of the garden, there was a pond, and the shelter of the trees blocked out all the noise and the wind, so that the surface of the water was calm and bright as a mirror.
There was a short guide that was included in the entrance fee. In the guide, the symbology of the Japanese garden was explained, how different features of it might be interpreted. This particular garden could be seen as a symbolical walk through life, with childhood, adolescence, marriage, adulthood and old age. Every plant, every tree and stone and piece of lawn, was meticulously pruned and cut and placed with extreme care and thought, and I guess that was why it was such a calming place. It was as if the trees themselves got my heartbeat to slow down and my breathing to become deeper. And just then, the sun broke through the clouds and made the fresh leaves of the trees shine. Oh, it was magical.
Katja Malmborg 