Come with me and
Listen to a story
Of birds and trees
And bumblebees
Of children dancing
In the rain
And the love of
kittens and of dogs
Of kitchen tables full of food,
Of laughter and of love
And all these things
Go round the world
With different songs
Afnd dress and voice.
We live, we love, we cry
No matter where we live.
“Stories are important, the monster said. They can be
more important than anything. If they carry the truth.”
~ Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls
Update:
Humdrum, mundane ~ two words that do not fit with this beautiful story. My second read of this story is fraught with the realities of war. I really didn’t want it to end, reading each page as a treasure. There is history in this story relating to the war between China and Japan. The tensions between Judge Teoh, and Aritomo, the gardener, because of the cruelties of the war, slowed their precious love story.
~~~~~
Original: September 2016
From the first page, the beautiful writing drew me into this story. The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng opened our new season at my book group. What a wonderful read. The story opens in Malaysia as Judge Teoh is taking an early retirement from the bench in Kuala Lumpur. Returning to the Cameron Mountains, she plans to go Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists. She reunites with Frederick Pretronis on Majuba Tea Estates neighbouring Yugiri.
Judge Yun Ling Teoh is returning to the Garden to recover her past and honour her sister. They had both been in a Japanese internment camp when she was nineteen and was the only surviving member of this brutal camp. Later she was a research clerk in the War Crimes Tribunal while waiting admission to law school at Cambridge University in 1949. Her early retirement was prompted by early signs of dementia. Yun Ling begins to write her memories that span forty years from World War II through the early 1950’s and into the 1980’s before they are lost to her.
Yun Ling’s story unfolds in layers of present and past, much like the layers in the Japanese gardens that she and her sister loved. The memory of the gardens that kept them alive in the camp. Yugiri was designed and cared for by Arimoto, who was once the gardener to the Japanese emperor. Yun Ling, despite her hatred of all Japanese, determined to keep her promise to her sister to create a Japanese garden.
Spontaneity in her life was as contrived as the outlines of Yurigi, whose stone placements, foliage and pathways were designed and placed with thought only to the image. Beneath the surface of the present images designed to deceive, lay feelings of hatred, anger, and the guilt that only a survivor knows. The principle of shakkei or borrowed scenery, the use of nearby or distant landscapes, including the sky, is used in Japanese gardening. This principle seems to be a part of Yun Ling’s whole story. The past, the present and memory all shaped her story without intent.
Winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize, The Garden of Evening Mists is a book I will read again.
“Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley,
shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then
the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it
for a moment before the wind seals up the gap,
and the world is in shadows again.”
~ Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists
Title: The Garden of Evening Mists
Author: Tan Twan Eng
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Publication Date: 2012
Format: Soft Cover
ISBN: 978-1-60286-180-0 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978-1-60286-181-7 (e-book)
Type: Fiction
Loneliness and solitude are two completely different things. I have felt them both. When I am lonely, I feel cut off, unloved and unwanted; feeling very sorry for myself, and that no one really understands me or wants to understand me. It’s a very bleak, frightening and empty feeling. Beauty and joy are singed badly around the edges. Incredibly melodramatic!
When I am in a state of solitude, I feel whole. Excited about life, I know I am loved and wanted. As far as that cut off feeling? It’s my responsibility to reach out to others. Reaching out can be because I am lonely, or because I’ve not connected with my loved ones, or both. Disconnection does go two ways. In a state of solitude, even the tiniest flower is beautiful. My heart will feel joy in my world as it is; great sadness for the tragedies in the lives of others.
There is narrow path between the two states of being. Maybe they are two sides of the same street. Solitude going on too long can slide silently into loneliness. Just like a treasured gift ~ if solitude is not appreciated and cherished, it can become a dark and broken loneliness.
“I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people;
that each protects the solitude of the other.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
Behind the window,
a story would unfold.
Life would be lived with
love and laughter,
sorrow and tears,
sewing for pleasure,
learning dance steps for leisure
hurry to work or off to class
vacation plans or
dreams of retirement
all swirled through life’s ups and downs.
There will always be a story
behind the window.
“Strange things blow in through my window on the wings
of the night wind and I don’t worry about my destiny,”
~ Carl Sandburg
Eventide is when the air cools, the highway traffic thins and days end approaches. Nostalgia sat on Eddie’s shoulders like his worn denim jacket. May had cut one up years ago for patches and rags. Always the frugal one she had saved their behinds more than once. He missed her in a way he did not know could happen. They had talked many times about retirement and their own mortality but it was ever only an idea. When retirement came around, he still had the ranch and she had her life set up outside of the ranch. Oh, she tried to get him involved in some of it, but he was happy tending his cows. They hadn’t any children and he did hire a couple to help him. Early on they were not really necessary. He was just lonely. With each passing year, he found he was unable to keep up with the hard work of the ranch. Andy picked up the slack and his wife, MaryLou, kept his house, cleaned out his refrigerator and they became his family. Their children were like grandchildren and even called him Poppy. When May was alive she would have been a wonderful grandmother baking them cookies, teaching them how to sew, playing hide and seek with them. Thinking of it all made him smile. One tear tipped onto his grizzled cheek and he chuckled.
Eddie could feel his own mortality in his bones every time he had to straighten his bended knees. “Come on, old man. Get yourself moving. You’ve got a new foal coming and the mare needs help. Here comes Joey - my young assistant. Wants to be a vet one day. Guess I’d better keep on giving him that practical experience he always talks about.” Eddie slipped on his patched denim jacket and, hat on his head, he edged slowly down the porch steps. “Hold up there, young Joey. You knock me over and you’ll have to birth that foal yourself!”
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
~ Andy Warhol
Waking every morning is easy.
Reflexively, eyes flutter open.
Getting out of bed ~ temporary.
Staying out of bed ~ a choice.
short term goals dictate ~
like food, coffee and schedules
glossing over living a good life.
To be. To enjoy. As days fly past
while we breeze through life ~
to be and to enjoy gathers dust ~
Until schedules vanish and life opens
as wide as the sky: To Be. To Enjoy.
“Wake up, and all will not be for naught. Wake up, and all is not lost.”
~ Søren Sørenson
Is there any purpose?
Should any of us be here?
Does any of it matter?
Seeking purpose, the answer is seldom in my mailbox or in a phone call, so
I am offered two choices:
throw a fine pity party or
wiggle my toes in the sand
gaze at the vast, blue sky,
say goodnight to the stars in the sky,
dance on the ground beneath my feet
and share in this great community
witnessing it all while I
live, love and have fun
leaning into life as it is and as it becomes
accepting cloudy days and the blossoms of spring
most of all to cherish family and friends.
“Yes, I know: the thread you have to keep finding, over again,
to follow it back to life; I know. Impossible, sometimes.”
~ Jean Valentine, Door in the Mountain:
New and Collected Poems 1965-2003
What story do I tell when
weather is rainy and grey
when cat tales sleep soundly
when travel is still at my door
when life is so very ordinary;
the shimmer beyond my eyes
today's story lives at home ~ warm, comfortable; soaring or gentle symphony playing
or whistling to a jaunty melody……
wanting for nothing save that
all my family is safe and warm.
“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment
or experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”
~ Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
 |
| Blossom Time - Royal Albert china |
So many thoughts this Easter morning. Where do I start? Spinning from ordinary todays to special days of childhood,
I liked the dress up part best, a new dress, a new Easter bonnet ~ Flowing along life changes, those precious times
were washed away, held only
by the fraying strings of memory. Now on my own, in my own place, resurrection of these things
a slow and joyous task, brings out
the china dinner plate for my breakfast,
drifts me back to long ago Easter and special days
when we set the table, placing the silver cutlery just so,
making sure the pretty pink blossoms
on the plate had the laneway take me
to the end of the orchard. One more time, I set
a pretty china plate, but with ordinary cutlery.
“You can find something truly important in an ordinary minute.”
~ Mitch Albom
 |
| Or taking a walk just because! |
The work we do at home
behind closed doors
besides sweeping the floors
or dusting every little thing
but reading an intriguing book
other stuff should's forgotten
Or writing stories, essays, poems
when the other stuff still calls
Or crocheting a new baby blanket
when the bed still needs making
Or painting an imagined landscape
when the dishwasher needs emptying
Or - anything that creates meaning and
depth in life behind closed doors
“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”
~ J.M.Barrie
Tall or short,
grand or stumpy with
trunks, leaves and branches,
home to birds and squirrels,
insects and tiny bugs.
possibly an orchardist in another life,
I see a tree in need and want to prune it.
trim off random suckers draining it of life
remove dead, bare branches that weigh it down
cut away branches broken by wind or a passing semi
when the wind swirls ideas,
poems and stories through my mind
I can pick up my pen and write or,
let flashing, shiny coins distract me or
pick up my pruning shears and get to work.
“As the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree into
one or two vigorous limbs, so should you stop off
your miscellaneous activity and concentrate
your force on one or a few points.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Four years ago tonight
my nursing career
came to a gentle stop:
Life has blossomed with
craft projects for 3 year olds,
new friends and old,
exploring Regina again,
the kitchen as my happy place,
writing projects in progress.
and beautiful ordinary household chores,
shopping for groceries and home
caring for my feline roommate.
It’s all good!
“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye,
life will reward you with a new hello.”
~ Paul Coelho
