“One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands out and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun–which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with the millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in someone’s eyes.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, Secret Garden
On my recent trip to Italy, I rewatched the 90s version of The Secret Garden on the way to Rome and fell in love with it all over again. I’m certainly not the first human to look around and notice that people are asleep, going through their daily routines. You fall asleep and wake up 10 years older and the time speeds by. Ticking away, the moments that make up a dull day/ you fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way . Time is just time- an unchanging and immutable force that marches on. So many of us wait and dither for the “right” time to do what our hearts are pleading us to do. I’ll have the time, things will slow down, I want it to be perfect. There are so many why nots that people forget the why. I went to my friend’s funeral yesterday. He was blessedly old- 89 years on this earth. Funerals are weird. The person is no longer in their body but we are still here, holding the space for them. It was mostly older people there, looking sad, wanting to talk to a younger face in the room.
-“Gosh, we’re going to be next.”
-“Heaven’s waiting room, amiright? It’s a shame we only see each other at these sort of things.”
-“Well, the years have certainly gotten away from me.”
I sat next to a neighbor and talked about a trip she had planned to Portugal, but will never take. Too many obligations, her husband can’t cook for himself and who is going to get the mail? She can’t understand how I can “just go” and travel, don’t you feel funny leaving?
I feel funny not leaving, I say- and mean it.
My friend was a pilot and an odd person. I met him and his wife strolling my babies when they were babies and we became friends. His wife died and then it was just him and his funny pack of dogs. “Her name is Angie, because my wife thought she was an angel- but she howls like the Devil and sometimes I have to lock her in the bathroom.” He was upset about his wife dying and told me he didn’t need my charity, but I invited him over for Thanksgiving and Christmas anyway. He went on mission trips to Mexico and drank the water against someone’s advice and got a brain worm. “I’m a little messed up from the brain worm still, Jacque.” But he learned 12 string guitar in his garage and painted illuminated manuscripts. He gave me a little pre-Columbian mother statue that he and his wife found somewhere in Arizona. “You should have this; you are a great mom.” He brought me a moody painting that he made of the nature preserve and I put it in a gold frame. I love this painting, Art. “It’s not very good,” he said.
His little brother was shot down in Vietnam and he went there 5 times to look for him. He didn’t eat sugar, but he always had Halloween candy for my kids. Even as the years took his keen mind from him, he would say “I’ll always remember your smile” and I will miss him. His son took him away to Portland in the middle of the night and I never got to say goodbye to him. Not really. He probably wouldn’t have wanted me to say goodbye; he didn’t like a fuss. He was always helping people even when he needed help.
Our biggest problem is thinking we have unlimited time. Time can be cruel but she can also be kind. The Devil is in the details, they say. God is in the details, too.
Take the trip. Call your friends. Make the plans. Don’t be the person at the funeral wondering why you didn’t go into the secret garden. It’s waiting for you, too.
“Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden