Friday, April 14, 2006

Bridge over stagnant water

My bridge is coming together. Today, Dan and I put the supporting planks around the posts and amazingly, it looks like a bridge.

I have spent considerable time standing out in my garden, just looking, trying to see where the path will go. The most obvious path is often the least interesting. Straight paths are easy to visualize but they lack imagination, drama and that elusive design element, tension.

Sometimes, I see a path with curves and sometimes I see one with turns. Sometimes I see a path with stairs at the end, leading to the pergola and other times I see an evergreen hedge with stepping stones crossing between.

There are infinite possibilities. Connecting disparate elements such as pond, pergola, house and outer garden, is a complicated matter and wonderfully exciting.

So far, I've penciled in a "white garden" for immediately beyond the patio and I know that parts of the path will be stone and lumber, in a repeating rhythm.

Rhythm, tension, drama. Twists, turns and crooked little paths.

All parts of my garden. All parts of my life.