summer, ending
summer, ending
a journal entry on finding a secret garden at the back of a cemetery and picking blackberries on a sunny sunday afternoon
Earlier we went out for solace in the sun. We had just spent a week disappointed with the weather, a feeling I have been sitting with since June on and off. We escaped the outskirts of London and switched it for the countryside; the sound of birds without a backing track of traffic and to hear the wind whispering to the leaves climbing on the windows outside of our room. Instead, both inside and outside were cold, the sun never shone, only briefly on our arrival. My just-in-case-jumper became a trusted everyday companion.
We arrived back to the skirting board of London and found what we were looking for all along on our doorstep, within the company of those you can only talk about in the saddest tense, the cemetery.
I always find it strange, disrespectful even, to sit amongst the dead, as though I am flaunting my working lungs and eyes, living, living among the dead. It seems wrong. C tells me that he used to play around in cemeteries with his siblings as children. I picture corpses, using an ulna or femur to bang the tops of their coffins like angry downstairs neighbours.
We walk, tracing the space for gaps between headstones, older-looking ones that no one visits anymore. We keep walking until we find a secret patch of grass right at the back of the cemetery we never knew was there. The gates are the open arms of a mother at your childhood home, she hasn’t seen you in months, her hair looks greyer, wrinkles etching deeper into collagen-poor skin, she’s so happy to see you though. Tall enough hedges decorate the perimeter, a hidden garden just for us. We stand in awe. It’s all we’ve ever wanted since moving in. It’s what all of my silly little stories were about in all of my notebooks as a child. A secret garden and a boy who loves me to share it with.
Our downstairs garden is communal and we hate our neighbours but the rest of the buildings’ residents are lovely but we are anxious introverts at heart and the sound of a door opening or a gate opening or a car door slamming shut will jolt us with a surge of nerves like plunging a quick fist into a bowl of water and it takes too long to put the drops back into the bowl again before another car door slams shut.
The downstairs garden is nice but we only want to hear each other’s voices.
I hate bugs but they they don’t stay for long. Awkward silences and waving palms and “how are you! we’re good! weather’s lovely!” lasts a lifetime.
It took us two summers to find this place. I already anticipate our next visit. Tomorrow after work perhaps? During work? Shall we just build a house here?
“I would definitely build a house here,” he says.
My mind is suddenly a scene at Bonfire Night. I mentally measure the living room with a separate kitchen, an island, multiple bedrooms, an en suite, decor, decor, decor, tiny house just for us, just two people who love each other and the distant sound of traffic instead of having dinner on the M25. It’s small, it’s cosy, I love it, I love him.
Who owns this land? Can we buy this land? Can we buy land?
We probably won’t buy this land and build a house. But goodness how wonderful that would be. I won’t write things about how wonderful it would be.
But the patch of grass now has a special place in my heart, even if we never get to use it again. I spent my childhood, most of my life in fact, reading books about characters with special places they run to when life gets too heavy. I’ve never had a place like that. An extra cup when one overflows.
All of my love for summer rose to the surface, like bubbles in a fizzy drink. I lay down, the sun is at eye level if I lower my gaze a little. The sky is clear, the air is warm, sometimes burning, like a hand too close to a flame. We rub sunscreen on each other. We lie down together. The flies buzz and the bees crawl down into moonflowers, disappearing and shaking petals lightly as they rummage for pollen, they fly out again for the next soft tunnel to burrow down in. Blackberries are soaking up the sun, ripening, softening, hanging and asking to be picked.
He runs back home for containers so we can do as the blackberries say.
He’s much taller than me so he can reach more than I can.
“The good ones are all too far.”
I prick my hand on a thorn. His container is nearly full.
We lie back down on our blanket and I open my book again and he unlocks his phone to play a game of chess again before getting up to pick determined little burrs off our blanket and walk back home.
As we walk, I wonder if we’ll be back before summer ends.
Hi everyone, I hope you enjoyed today’s post. That little garden has all my love and I’ve been waiting for the weather to be at least a tiny bit nice so we can go back, and so far it hasn’t :( I fear we have found this little place way too late. Keep me in your thoughts n prayers x
How have you been? Have you been on any nature walks lately and picked some blackberries? Are we sad about summer ending but also really excited for cosy season? This time of year is always a huge contradiction for me because of that! Tell me your thoughts!
I’ll see you soon, hope you have a lovely week!
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