36
CIRQUE
NONFICTION Wilhemina Condon
The Garden of Eden I have a beautiful garden, a little oasis in the city of Seattle. It sits high above the street on a double lot, surrounded by mature birch, lilac, and dogwood trees. Soft borders of sweet william, sedum, and sword ferns frame the lawn and rock roses line the walkway. On any given day the garden smells of daphne odora, star jasmine and spice viburnum. In the spring, when the dogwood outside my bedroom balcony blooms, it’s as if I am floating in a sea of white blossoms. But I did not create this Eden. The garden was created by someone with an eye for design and a gift for the pairing and placement of plants. I have neither the patience nor the vision of a real gardener. I bought all this beauty. I was so captivated by the woodshingled cottage, in the middle of the well-established meandering garden, that I ignored the leaky roof, the water in the basement, and the squirrels in the attic. Not long after moving in, I found a small stone plaque underneath the over-grown hydrangeas that read “Mother’s Garden.” Perhaps the couple that lived here Pansies before were the type who called each other mother and father. More likely, Mother was his mother, who lived in the small, odd-shaped bedroom at the top of the stairs. The room has no closets, and I can’t shake the feeling that Mother died in that room without even a place to hang her coat. But Mother’s garden is now my garden. I happily mow the lawn, rake the leaves, and trim the unruly verbena. Because of my proclivity to let things get out of hand, the garden is a lot less tidy than when Mother lived here. I like it that way. I have learned the names of the plants and the trees and have observed their habits; in this way I have made the garden my own. When the pandemic hit, I intended to make full use of the garden. What better recluse? Where better to isolate? I arranged my lawn chair underneath the jasmine covered pagoda. I finally had the time and the perfect place to tackle Moby Dick. I wasn’t much beyond, “Call me Ishmael,”
when the disembodied voices of my neighbors entered my consciousness. I can’t see them, thanks to the thick hedge of camellias, but oddly, because my hearing isn’t great, I can hear every word. I soon make out that my neighbors are a couple with two young children, Brady and Bethany. The children are old enough to talk, but not old enough to say anything interesting. They seem to be around all the time. All the time. The children are never left alone in their fenced back yard. Mommy and daddy supervise their play. “Good job Brady, nice sharing Bethany.” A litany of positive training. Every move watched and correction made with a soothing voice, “Bethany doesn't like it when you hit her Brady.” I want to yell “Of course she doesn’t; that’s why he does it.” But it's not my job to raise Bethany and Brady and I go back to Melville, irritated and annoyed at their drivel. As the summer progresses, there is a flurry of home improvements on the other side of the fence. They build a new deck, install a family size swim-tub with six jets, a giant trampoline, a bouncy-house, a swing set, and a sand box. They Lucy Tyrrell spend their days pressure-washing, leaf-blowing, drilling, and barbecuing. Every square foot of their yard is now a funhouse. I have no desire to see what they actually look like; I never prune the hedge more than I have to. I’d rather pretend they did not exist. I’d rather pretend I lived on an island. I’d rather pretend I owned an oasis in the city. I started to call them the Andersons after the neighbors in Robert Stone’s short story, “Helping.” The Andersons were over six feet tall and blond with perfectly straight white teeth with two tall blond children that were athletic and gifted. My neighbors start each day with a brisk workout on their side-by-side pelotons, drink protein smoothies, and consider the ingestion of carbohydrates a moral failing. They are a pleasing, wholesome, healthy family, that I, like the protagonist in, “Helping,” have come to hate. I have taken to wearing headphones.
