Always Room for One More Dream

"There are several stages in the evolution of a garden and gardener. It is only when the last stage is reached that all this material is seen as color on a palette with which to paint a picture, a picture never quite finished, but always having room in it for one more dream." ...Marie Aull

Gardens and gardeners...flowers as paint on a palette with which to paint a picture...one that is never finished...a beautiful thought Marie Aull gives us when thinking of gardens as palettes with which to paint pictures with room for dreams. I was there yesterday..in Marie Aull's garden..and I felt as if I had walked into my dream.

Wanting to be a writer, I always imagined my writing place as exactly that. Behind the bench in the photo, a stream runs...listening to the soft sounds of the water flowing...water is soothing, healing. A canopy of trees provides shade from the heat of the sun just above the bench while sun is allowed through in the grassier areas of the gardens. Flower beds are in areas and blooms can be seen in all four seasons of the year. Her home sits upon the hill to the right of the bench overlooking the gardens. Windows surround the home so she could enjoy her garden view. Marie lived to be 105.

I think that perhaps a writer is somewhat like a gardener...the book is the garden...words are the flowers....and the picture is the story. And even though a book has and ending, the story does not necessarily end...the characters live on. Books also can have an impact on the reader that never ends... And as for dreams...Marsha Norman said that "Dreams are illustrations... from the book your soul is writing about you."

So, I do think that gardeners/gardens are like writers/books....and I do think that Marie Aull's garden is a place where there is not just a wonderful palette, but a breath taking studio with which to paint pictures where there is always room for one more dream.