Visions of a better past

Consider the garden bench.

It has that permanent quality, like it’s been there for decades with plant life flourishing around it. It’s often made of concrete in a style reminiscent of older, classical times. The wooden ones are great, too, but they paint an entirely different picture.

There are a couple of benches in my garden. One sits at the end of a garden path, under an arbor covered with climbing roses. That’s the place I think about taking a book and quietly reading—probably Emily Dickinson or a very long Russian novel.

There’s another next to the birdbath. It’s sheltered by mature California pepper trees with drooping branches that scatter little red peppers on the decomposed granite path. That bench was carefully placed to take advantage of a canyon view.

We have yet another bench. It’s flanked by camphor trees and looks out onto a nice stretch of lawn. It has a slight curve to its shape and a delicate scrolling pattern in its terra cotta form. Very Italianate.

Trouble is, I can count on one hand the times I’ve actually used any of these resting spots. Seems there’s never time to stop long

enough to, well, stop or at least pause.

On sunny days, if I make it into the garden at all, I’m pulling weeds or giving my pruning sheers a workout. There are always plants to feed, nursery trips to make, beds to clean out or new planting to consider.

That’s modern life; we create the image of repose without ever really living it. We do it in our homes as well. We furnish luxurious master baths and rarely luxuriate in them. We spend our last dollar on remodeling stateof-the-art kitchens, then order take-out or microwave frozen dinners most nights.

And in the garden we create these dreamlike corners that recall quieter, gentler times. I think of life among the aristocracy in 19th-century Europe, or of Jane Austen’s world, where no one ever has to go to work and instead everyone spends their seasons visiting other landed gentry. Today, in the suburbs, we of

ten try to re-create a small portrait of that time gone by, a little still life that says I could live differently here, in this small corner of the garden. I think it says something about the pace of our lives or maybe a nagging ache in our collective unconscious.

Here’s my con

fession: I haven’t

read a 10-pound Russian novel since college.

Now I’m thinking about putting one more garden bench in my yard. This one will rest among newly planted fruit trees on the hillside. Haven’t figured out just where it will go, but I’m

sure once it’s in place . . . I’ll hardly ever have time to use it.