Secret Garden

Have you ever read "The Secret Garden"?

Though this book was, by no means, my favorite piece of childhood literature (a spot reserved for "The Velveteen Rabbit"), there was many a school day where I would spend its afternoon whittling away at my own internal secret garden. Yes, much to my teacher's chagrin every time she waited for my answer after having called on me to answer some silly science or history question.

There's something adventurous and fantastical about having a secret garden while still maintaining intimacy and comfort. When I think of a simple "garden," I still think of things like dirt, wind, too much sun, bugs, etc. But when I think of a "SECRET garden," I think of this imaginative and private world. A garden would be a good place to entertain and to take care of guests, but a secret garden could be an escape and a liberation from everyday life, a retreat of some sort. There's an ethereal quality to it, where you feel like it could just fly away at any moment. But at the same time, you know that the garden is REAL and that it's THERE, making it the best kind of fantasy, one solidly grounded in seeds (forgive the pun) of reality.

I've decided that's what I'd like my wedding to be like. Though there's no doubt that I can be a very public and outgoing person, my relationship with Victor has made me understand the value of privacy and intimacy in a very good and abundant way, in my opinion. I think I used to be too quick to share and vomit my life upon others, sometimes to the dismay of those around me as well as to my own self. Having dated such an enigma for so long and now, being engaged to him, I feel as though there's something about our relationship that also has this "secret garden" quality to it that would make this thematic measure all too appropriate for our wedding.

Fortunately, though there's virtually no way I could ever own a secret garden, I can spend the rest of my life cultivating this relationship :)