Secret Garden—a special place where children’s imaginations can run wild, away from the suffocating seriousness of reality, a place where one explores what it means to be “me”, where one is bounded only by their own will. A place where bonds can flourish and strengthen. A place that brings children together. Secret Garden- a secret alcove under the security of a linen tent, a treehouse that traverses imaginary lands, a small creek down the way. Of all the places I could have chose, my Secret Garden was my closet.
When I was very little I shared a bedroom with my two older sisters. In our two bedroom home, it was the only space we were free to control. When we weren’t at the library together, we would play for hours in our room. The bunk bed became Mt. Everest and we became the three brave mountaineers who climbed the great mountain in only one nap time. Other times the room would become a sea full of creatures that we were the first to discover. And when we explored every imaginary land we could think of, we’d eventually resort back to the simplest of games: librarian, the best way to “shhs” each other without getting in trouble.
But when I found myself alone, which was rather often as the“only child” during school hours, I drifted towards my closet- my Secret Garden. Being the naturally reclusive and quiet child that I was, I needed a place where I could be myself, by myself.
I can’t remember exactly when and how I began sitting in my closet, but I assume it was initially a place to hide or cry in private when I was having an unusually hard day for a three-year-old. I wasn’t fond of the yelling and teasing that came from my mother’s at-home daycare kids, and our room was the only place the other kids weren’t allowed . Yet the open air of the room made me feel vulnerable, even more vulnerable than the children themselves. So into the closet I crawled, my timidity the key to my Secret Garden.
The closet itself was rectangular in form and inlaid high into the wall. It was made of old wood that smelled strongly of antiquity. I loved that smell. I would close the rolling door as far as I could without locking myself in, just to be enveloped in darkness- leaving only that earthy smell. It was almost like my own warm and safe forest in the middle of a cold city. A forest that I climbed hills, my beureau, to reach, and though it was very cramped between the clothes and shelves, this tiny recess held worlds within it. It was a place where I could ponder over what was on my three year old mind. Where I could find solace in the quietness it afforded. It was my shelter from the storm, it was my Secret Garden. It was the place I found the most fragrant and appealing flower amongst my flowerbed- reading.
Reading fell upon me like a miracle in the night. I can’t remember how I learned how to read, yet I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t. I do, however, remember an innate desire to create meaning to the world around me. This insatiable desire compelled me to read everything I could find. I couldn’t stop; I had to read everything. Every sign, every label, every news ticker, and every book I could get my hands on- everything. It was as if the moment my brain put meaning to words it decided to read every one written; regardless of genre, function, or meaning. This overwhelming curiosity that resided in my soul prompted me to make sense of the world and everything in it.
As my family recognized my love of reading, they began to give me more books to satisfy my hunger. By that time I was about seven or eight. My parents started taking my sisters and I to the library every week. Before then I only had what was around the house to read, which was mostly housekeeping books and random Reader’s Digests from 1945 onward.
These weekly trips to the library became a part of me. Like clockwork, my mother would be at the library twice a week with us three homeschooled kids in tow, taking out as many books as the librarian would allow us. Our visits were so regular that we even developed close relationships with the librarians themselves. Many books from my personal library were gifts from them and to this day, over ten years later, they still recognize us. There was hardly anything that could parallel the joy we got from spending hours amongst the many rows of books, magazines, and maps.
Our library had became more than a place to pass time with idle reading , it became our collective Secret Garden. Our hideaway from the harsh realities of life we found ourselves discovering as we got older, as we became more cognizant of the “real world”. A place to explore concepts that thus far, were foreign to us. A place to learn about each other. Our preferences, our interests, our opinions, our goals, even our senses of humor. And as I realized how easy the library made this, I grew more willing to let go my former closet garden in favor for this one. I guess it worked too, because it seems that though the books we read left a big mark on me, what I learned about my sisters through them impacted me the more.
Our library was aggregated by four categories: children’s, teenager’s, adult’s, and educational resources. My sisters, being three and five years older than me, established themselves in the teenager section. I claimed my territory in the children’s section, all by myself. Our Secret Garden had become home to a vast land ripe for exploring and conquering. My kingdom was in the farthest corner of the library. Colorful rugs and seats were thrown everywhere, they became my royal thrones. The books, ranging from Fried Green Eggs and Ham to Little Women, became my crown jewels . But even though my land was vast and fruitful, I had no subjects- except maybe the two computers in the corner, because all the other kids were in school.
When my brain grew tired of entertaining itself and the endless shelves of books blurred into colorful bricks too numerous in number to choose from, I wandered into the teenager section. There I would find my sisters lying about the beanbags reading YA novels. Crawling under them to read the cover descriptions and leaning above them to read the text, I found myself learning about my sisters without even exchanging words.
Book titles and genres told me what excited them, what was appealing to them. I found out that my oldest sister, Maddy, liked to read James Patterson books. I then made it my goal to collect all the James Patterson books in the teenager section and lay them in her vicinity. My other sister, Savannah, I found, liked period pieces, full of vintage dresses and vintage ways of thinking. So I directed her to all the historical fiction I could find.
Soon I began going outside of their section to find books. When I found a book that I thought would interest them from my section, I would bring it to them. Likewise, they would refer me to books they read when they were my age. Many times I would end up picking out the same books Maddy read when she was my age because of our similar preferences.
As time went on, we cultivated our Garden into something beautiful. It was a place where friendly interactions and pleasants moods were established. Where we took a personal interest in each other and learned to work together. I can remember taking out books for each other when one of us reached our borrowing limits, or my sisters taking out “teenager” books for me. I even remember us all getting in trouble for using flashlights to read late at night. We always shared the books we took out, too. They would have three different bookmarks in them from us all simultaneously reading it. In our house, putting down a book was the equivalent of putting down the remote, you’ve relinquished control over it. Our household was just so centered around reading. It was the biggest group activity we ever engaged in.
As we got older and my sisters enrolled in high school, our trips to our Secret Garden together became far and few inbetween. Alone, I would ride my bike to the library to take out a few books and leave. I renounced my position as ruler of the children’s section- how could I rule something I never saw? Our Secret Garden dissolved into more of a memory, but our love for books still prevailed. Instead of borrowing books from libraries, we began borrowing from each other. Any book they bought or acquired slowly trickled their way down to me, little odds and ends of books they got from school and whatever I found lying around our grandma’s house. Books became our family’s hand-me-downs and heirlooms. We still have many books from our grandma, dusty first edition’s and obscure works from the 30s onward, who also shared the same tenacity for reading as us. In fact, we’ve now officially inherited all of my grandmother’s books, she’s moved onto collecting National Geographic magazines, and her bookcase.
The books I have collected from my sisters and grandma, many of which became favorites, still grace my bookshelves, and wherever else they overflow into, today. I still find myself, the ideals and the things I hold dear, in these old books, which I continue to run off to again and again. And as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to find others in them as well. I see the great personality traits my sisters garnered and grew from these books. I see the wealth of knowledge my grandmother obtained through decades of reading. And the more I reminisce, the more I see how instrumental books where to bringing my family together.
As I remember my childhood, the one thing that really kept us together, that we could always connect through, was books. Some families bond over their shared love of sports, or cooking, or painting. It seems that my family bonded through reading. Outside of exchanging books and reading together, our family did not always interact often. None of us were very good at showing affection, so I guess books became our vessel to express it in another way; recommending and buying books for each other being our own manifestations of hugs and ‘I-Love-Yous’.
I also see how through reading, I was able to expand and share my secret garden with others. It’s almost funny how the very thing that I created as a way to be alone ultimately ended up as the thing that brought us all together. Growing up as someone who had difficulty opening up to others, it’s evident that this entire concept was important in teaching me to become close with others. I’m not holed up in any figurative or literal closet now, I’ve learned how to connect to others though not only our similarities, but our differences too. This especially applies to my sisters. Without our garden, I don’t think I would ever know so much about my sisters, let alone be close to them. I’m sure they feel the same way.
We hardly ever visit the library now. Age and responsibility has robbed us of that time. All that is left is our memories of our Secret Garden, and yet new flowers still blossom. Maybe the library never really was our Secret Garden, maybe it was always within the knowledge and affinity we have for each other- the time we took to enjoy each other’s company. Perhaps our Secret Garden never truly became a memory, but the very place we built and continue to build our sisterly inseparability from.
About the Author
I enjoy sleeping more than anything, but in rare moments of consciousness, I also like running, cooking, and the arts. My favorite authors include Cressida Cowell, Ray Bradbury, and Jane Austen. When I’m not annoying my English professor with schemes to do the least amount of work, I like to think about what I want to do with my life and my health science degree. I’ve only made incremental progress on that so far, so I guess I’m stuck with writing things. But I enjoy that, so I guess it’s all working out.
