Bredonborough.
It is a grey, wet morning in Bredonborough.
Gardening is an art of the ephemeral. The garden continues, the form of the garden persists, but the flowering is relatively brief and in constant change. A good plantsperson will graduate the flowering throughout the year, so there is always a new & blooming delight to replace the faded blooms of last week, last month, last season. Some blooms are short lived: to miss their moment is to miss witnessing a moment of their glory. Others will return next season: the same plant, a new blossoming.
The experience is in the moment. We are in that moment, or we have lost it: the moment will never return. How to hold the moment?
In England, during the past two decades, there has been a developing movement to open private garden spaces to the public. To share a personal joy with others is to discover that a deeply felt personal joy is utterly impersonal. This offsets the small proportion of garden visitors who take cuttings without permission, step backwards carelessly onto a flower bed, and professionals who case the joint. The balance between openness & sharing, and carelessness & theft, is a balance between joy, touching what is possible in this world, and accepting the human condition.
Performance is much like this.
"There are few things as convincing as death to remind us of the quality with which we live our life."
