Twilight in the Garden

Twilight in the garden, blue hydrangea bursting into the night. This is a scene that kills me with closeness. 

When I was a little girl, I loved and lived in my backyard. We were raised in an old stone house by the water which I will write about another time because its cracks bursted with flowers and it has many stories of its own. For now I will tell only of the joy this house held, of the giant rose garden that fell down the hill to the water below. Roses the same color as the blood we shed when we braved that hill of thorns on our bikes one summer. All day we did nothing but discover everything. 

Morning and night were combed with rituals. We would pull the lilacs into the kitchen window to sit with us for breakfast, make our beds, walk on the rocks by the water; someone would fall, we’d run home up the pebbled path. We would swing on the swings for hours trying to go high enough to see the top of the city. There were three cherry blossom trees in the farthest corner of the yard, two pink and one white. My sister and brother and I would talk to one another,  each from our own tree until the sky turned purple. At night, I sat on my mother’s bed looking out to the water as she brushed my wet black hair. She dotted oils under my eyes and on my cheeks, cleaned my ears, and sang as she held my temples so gently. 

There were fifteen stairs to get to my room. I thought it was as high as the moon. My sister and I would whisper in bed until she fell asleep. That’s when I went to the window to stare at the rose and the lilac and the moonflower and the blue iris down below. On summer nights, I almost never slept because there were always parties in the garden. I’d sit on my bed, listening to the sounds, smiling sleepily. The lights would twinkle and the revolving wind carried the laughter of my parents’ friends. Sounds of glasses and music and footsteps on the slate patio. We had a beautiful Croatian neighbor named Bonnie whose laugh delighted me. We still talk about that laugh. I’d hear the boats clanking to their docks. I’d hear the color of the flowers in the night. I’d hear my sister breathing in the bed next to me. I swear I’d hear god turn off a light switch. On nights like this I would eventually fall asleep crooked in my bed, with my head pointing toward the windowsill and all of the things I loved most in the world.