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This was in early June of 2023. The WHO had recently declared an end to the public health emergency. Life’s hustle bustle was returning. Friends were gathering again. It felt like a moment of healing, of magic. In chapter 23 of The Secret Garden, Colin—a sickly boy, shunned by his grief-stricken father and shut away in an isolated manor by his doctor—expresses the healing nature of the garden. “…since I’ve been in the garden…I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing…it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places…Magic is making me well!”[1] Since I was young, I’ve always considered folks with “a green thumb” to have a type of magic. Both my grandmother and my mother have this magic, and their houses bloom into homes. Despite having grown up watching them work and helping them weed, I remember thinking they have a magical skill that I just don’t have. Until, I met our house. (If you are a new reader, you can learn more about the house here or in the archives.) A couple years after we settled in, the grounds that had been stripped of color and life started blooming. This wasn’t without effort, and yet, when the wisteria decided to introduce itself and the secret rose popped out of hiding, I recall feeling a happy sense of wonder.
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