I Will Buy You a Garden Where Your Flowers Will Bloom

The flowers are in bloom in Wegerzyn Gardens, yet another part of the Five Rivers Metropark system.  As the parks go, it's not as vast as Cox Arboretum, or as deep as Carriage Hill, but there's a simple elegance to the flowers, and on this stuffy July day, it's refreshing to get out in the fresh air and hear the buzzing of the bees.

It so colorful.  Reds, blues, yellows, whites, and strange combinations of every color you can't name paint the walkways.  Little flying creatures buzz from one blossom to the next, bumblebees defying physics yet again, dragonflies zipping past your head so quickly you can't hardly see them, and the ever-present butterflies that were so exciting to see weeks ago and are now a lovely coincidence.  It's mostly quiet, save for the chirping insects and the odd, delighted squeals from the kids splashing around in the Children's Discovery Garden.

The garden feels like every book you ever loved as a child.  Over here, it's Alice in Wonderland.  With that lamp post, it's The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.  That barren field where the Ash Trees used to grow might just be Great Expectations, if only a bit more abstract. 

 

(You might not have loved Great Expectations as a child.  I wouldn't say that I loved Great Expectations as a child.  I can't even say that I love Great Expectations now, but it seemed, somehow, so appropriate.  Sorry.)

Next to the gardens is the boardwalk that takes you through the swamp.  It's cooler under the trees, but the branches hang on to the air, and the humidity clings to your skin like spiderwebs.  As do the actual spiderwebs.  Silk strands strung between the beams glisten under a captured ray of sunshine.  I do my best to avoid them, but I still feel the ghostly dance across the back of my hand, tugging on the hairs of my arm.  It's an eerie feeling, on of the reasons I hate spiderwebs.  (The other reason being SPIDERS.) 

Dirt paths lead away from the boardwalk, deep into the woods.  It's tempting, but the mosquitos are out in full force today - I've already got a bright red welt swelling on my pinky finger.  Perhaps another time, when I'm better prepared.

Like all good things, the children's Discovery Garden is infinitely cooler than anything else Wegerzyn has to offer.  Someday, when I'm rich and famous, I'm going to build a park where adults can get wet and dirty and stick their fingers into strange places and find little secret hidey-holes that they can crawl into and spy on people.  And a dinosaur.  Discovery is not just a child's medium.  I still like to play.