My Garden Is Your Garden

It is very rare in life that you are given a gift that leaves you speechless. A gift that is so meaningful it is able to change your life.


Most people now know that I have moved house and have become the lucky next-door neighbour of Maitreya, who has a Japanese Garden and Meditation Centre. During my divorce proceedings I was trying to get a financial settlement that allowed me to buy myself a little place outright. My work is only during my permitted hours limited by my disability benefits and although I had a large deposit from my widow's pay out prior to the marriage, I knew I would never secure a mortgage. So, finding a place was a tricky business. I knew I was working within a limited budget and that was if I succeeded in securing all of my money back or whether the judge ruled a different way. It was a case of tentatively looking, then as soon as I got the ruling, diving in quickly. So, there were time constraints as well as financial ones; it had to be the right house, at the right time, for the right price. I was sure it was out there despite being told I might be better renting for a while till the right thing came along. I'd looked at houses in town, houses in villages and houses in the city itself. There were a few things that caught my eye but they were usually too expensive and constantly trying to explain to estate agents why I didn't want a mortgage and couldn't insure myself cheaply was a bit of a struggle. I almost thought renting was an option, but then I widened my search area just slightly and my village came up,
Intriguingly, it was a village where my husband Jez went a lot before he died, purely to sit in the peace of the Japanese Garden. Of course there was quite a lot he wouldn't have been able to access but I think it was the atmosphere, more than anything, that he craved. To think now that he would have wheeled from the car park right passed my house is comforting in some way. I didn't go because I was either working, or would be catching up on my sleep from caring the night before. For a while after he died I avoided it and then eventually I went and it has a transformative effect on anyone who goes there.
I had forgotten, because it seemed so near by, that the village was just across the border from us, in a different county so it didn't come into my normal Rightmove search area, but my house had just been reduced and therefore, dropped right into my price range. There it was, just at the bottom of the search, what appeared to be a tiny little cow shed or pig sty that had been turned into a little bungalow. I got straight on the phone and asked to view and I have to admit that 50% of me wanting it was because of where it is. My village is small and tucked away as a dead end on the way to the river. If you are not going there, you would not stumble across it accidentally. It has no shop, no pub and an old read telephone box that the village bought for a £1. It seemed quirky and there was an air of calm when we went to view - not from us, my friend and I were nuts for the place straight away.
So, gradually, it became mine. I have unusual but friendly neighbours who will always take in a parcel for you, or put the bin out when I can't manage. They seem to be people used to doing random acts of kindness for each other; they cut each other's lawns, they offer to take you to village events and one horrible night in winter when I came home late at night and it was pouring with rain my neighbour, who was walking his dog, came over and opened my gate for me to back in and then closed it after me so I wouldn't have to stand around getting soaking wet. The same neighbour's children baked me a cake when I first arrived and one of my neighbours who stopped to admire my dog suggested that maybe the garden has an effect on all of us. It has rubbed off on me too - I find myself taking in people's parcels because I am often at home, and have made gifts of cake or jams in return for other little kindnesses.
My father and brother stepped in quickly and designed my own garden. It is a very small, odd shaped front garden that was only cement and a turf lawn that was dying off by the second. It needed privacy and plants - cottage plants and climbing and tumbling plants to hide behind and to soften the edges of all that concrete. They built me a pergola for climbing plants, a pagoda to sit under, and raised beds to fill with flowers. It will be finished and useable for this summer and I am often surprised to see people pause as they walk next door to take a look at my garden.
After a few months and a couple of visits to the garden I starting striking up conversation with my neighbour. Maitreya is a quiet man, sometimes lost in thought, but often very jokey and giggly. I had often joked that I needed my own guru like Liz Gilbert had in Eat,Pray, Love but now it seemed to be coming true. Once or twice he had waived the charge to go into the garden, even for my parents, once saying ' you do not pay because you are the mother of my friend'. I was taken aback that he would consider me his friend because I had not done anything to deserve the honour. Eventually he asked if I was the sort of lady who could help him on the weekends, if I had time, on the Sunday afternoons when it gets busy. I said of course I would and he seemed very happy.
By the time I started volunteering I had started to understand the effect that the garden can have if you are open to it. It is a healing place: a place to sit and be, a place that constantly gives something different every time you go and a place to restore a busy, scrambled soul. On Sundays we serve the visitors tea together and we talk. He allowed me to use the garden as the location for my business photos for the Lotus Flower Book Club and he let me borrow the publisher's copy of his beautiful book of photographs, haiku and autobiographical observations. I felt very privileged.
On Mother's Day, we had a very busy day and not much time to talk together beyond asking which tea was where and had we run out of fish food. As we washed up the final set of dishes he prepared mum and I a Japanese rice salad which was a seemingly bizarre combination of warm rice, raw carrot, banana and a special dressing. I wasn't sure but it was delicious and mum and I ate it sat out in the garden recovering from the busy day. Then Maitreya brought out a tray with some jam and cream scones and his special 'Pureland' tea which is a blend of fruit tea with fresh lemon balm and mint from the garden. He laid the tray on the table and served us, which felt like an honour and we talked a lot about my links to the garden and what it meant to me.


After we'd eaten and got up to leave he stopped me and said 'my garden is your garden' and I felt a warmth in my chest at the enormity of the gift. He had spent over forty years crafting this beautiful outdoor sacred place and he was willing to share that with me at no cost and just because he knew it could heal me. I have been having a stressful few months with trying to balance the new business, other volunteering, my health and having my brother and niece live with me unexpectedly. I was finding it tough that just when I had become used to and enjoyed living alone that my house was suddenly overrun. It felt like a cosmic joke. Yet now, when I can, I go and sit for half an hour in the morning and just be. There I can empty my mind of thoughts, they try and creep back in, but I feel able to push them away. It is often surprising to me that I hear the church bell ring and more than half an hour has passed without me noticing. This quiet time stays with me through the day and allows me to be more measured and grounded. I don't stress quite so quickly and I manage my pain better. How do you repay someone for such an incredible gift? I bake a cake here, and lend a book there. I go round and talk and come back with so much inspiration and so many ideas. It is, quite simply, the most generous gift I have ever had.