A garden that came later
This Is Not
My Childhood Garden
My father bought this land when I was still a child. My grandmother was alive then. But there was no house here, and I never came.
My childhood in Meski belonged somewhere else.
My grandmother's house. The well outside. The small salon. The Grand Salon. Family voices.
This garden came later.
I love it for what it is today.
What lives here
The Garden
Around Me
Nothing extraordinary on its own. Together, it becomes the place I miss when I leave.
Palms
Dates, shade and the landscape I never tire of looking at.
Fruit
Figs, pomegranates and whatever is ready on the branch.
Bees
My hives, present here for more than four years.
Birds
Small sounds that make the silence feel alive.
Water
The well and the life that gathers around it.
Louis
Often somewhere nearby while I walk among the trees.
Morning
I Open the Door
and See Green
I wake up. I wash. Then I go outside.
Trees. Palms. Leaves. Fruit.
Beyond them, the dry land begins again.
Waaw.
That is still my reaction.
Then there is the smell. I still do not know how to describe it properly.
Earth. Leaves. Water. Fruit. Maybe all of it together.
One palm
The Meskaoui Palm
There is one palm I watch more closely than the others.
It is still close to human height. I can stand beside the bunches and really look at them.
The dates are Medjool. Almost perfect.
My parents know how much I like that palm.
So they call it the Meskaoui palm.
Once your parents give a tree your name, it becomes difficult to treat it like any other tree.
From the branch
Fruit Before Breakfast
If the figs are ready, I take one. If a pomegranate is good, I take that too.
When the dates are in season, they usually come first.
I like eating fruit where it grows.
The garden my father made
His Hand Is
Everywhere Here
My father is the real gardener.
He planted most of the trees himself, or had them planted by people working with him.
He still looks after the garden. Sometimes someone helps when there is too much work.
There can be peppers and tomatoes. Nearby there has been wheat. There are olive trees. Watermelons appear sometimes, but rarely.
I mostly observe.
I planted some small palms and jujube trees.
Not enough to call the garden my work. Just enough to leave a few growing things of my own.
My bees
Quiet Does Not
Mean Empty
The bees were not part of my childhood in Meski.
These hives came later. They are mine. They have been here for more than four years.
I like standing near them and watching.
Near the well, the bees come to drink. Birds come too.
Then there are the geese and chickens.
The garden is quiet. It is never empty.
I do not come here looking for silence without life.
I like the kind of silencein which I can hear life better.
Two different Meski mornings
I Do Not Confuse
This Garden with Childhood
I do not need every place in Meski to become a continuation of the past.
My Grandmother's House
My grandmother. People at the well. The salons. Uncles, aunts, cousins, children. Morning belonged to family life.
My Father's Garden
Trees. Birds. Bees. Louis nearby. Fruit on the branches. Morning belongs much more to solitude.
Why I call it my secret garden
Nobody Is
Looking at Me
The garden is not secret because nobody knows it exists.
It is secret because of how I feel when I go outside.
Nobody is watching. Nobody is judging. Nobody expects anything.
There is the garden. And Louis.
I can walk between the trees. Stop for no reason. Look at a palm for too long. Stand near the bees. Eat a fig without sitting down.
Do nothing.
Not hidden. Just mine in a way that is difficult to explain.
Something I still want
A Small Room
in the Old Style
One day I would like to build a small room here.
Brick. Earth over the walls. An old-style window. A place to sit and rest.
Somewhere I can drink tea and look toward the palms.
I do not want a museum.
I want to use it.
A different Meski
I Miss This Garden
When I Leave
I miss opening the door in the morning.
I miss the trees. The dates. The bees. That smell of nature I still cannot describe.
But I do not miss it more than my childhood in my grandmother's house.
That house belongs somewhere deeper.
Maybe that is why I can love this garden for what it really is.
Not a reconstruction. Not my childhood returned.
My father's trees. My bees. A palm carrying my nickname. Fruit eaten straight from the branch. Louis somewhere nearby. A little silence. And, if I have my way, many more Medjool palms to come.