Bredonborough.
It is a grey, wet morning in Bredonborough.
Gardening is an art of the ephemeral. The garden continues, the form of the garden persists, but the flowering is relatively brief and in constant change. A good plantsperson will graduate the flowering throughout the year, so there is always a new & blooming delight to replace the faded blooms of last week, last month, last season. Some blooms are short lived: to miss their moment is to miss witnessing a moment of their glory. Others will return next season: the same plant, a new blossoming.
The experience is in the moment. We are in that moment, or we have lost it: the moment will never return. How to hold the moment?
In England, during the past two decades, there has been a developing movement to open private garden spaces to the public. To share a personal joy with others is to discover that a deeply felt personal joy is utterly impersonal. This offsets the small proportion of garden visitors who take cuttings without permission, step backwards carelessly onto a flower bed, and professionals who case the joint. The balance between openness & sharing, and carelessness & theft, is a balance between joy, touching what is possible in this world, and accepting the human condition.
Performance is much like this.
