Peaceful garden

I am not a morning person. On weekdays, I usually start my morning in a hurry, wake up my child, make a hasty breakfast, take my child to school, then rush into the traffic to get to work. There are days when I can’t even remember if I said good morning or had time to see the faces of my loved ones. Everything just drifts away in the hurried wind like a mechanical repetition. Rarely, on weekend mornings, when the pace of life is quiet, when the alarm clock is allowed to rest, I am woken up early by the chirping of birds in the garden. I gently step out of bed, gently close the door so as not to wake up my husband and child from their warm sleep. At that time, the whole house is still immersed in the gentle breath of dawn. I go out into the garden, where every tree branch and blade of grass seems to have just woken up after a long night.

That garden is a work of love and waiting. Fifteen years ago, my husband and I started sowing the first green shoots on the empty land, without much experience, only the belief that the tree will not let down the person who takes care of it. This is the laurel tree that my father gave us, and this is the Barringtonia acutangula tree that my husband loves, that is the money tree that was given to us by the previous homeowner, and the bougainvillea tree that was borrowed from my youngest aunt's house. As for the wild apricot tree, my father said he planted it so that every spring, the flowers would bloom on Tet like the first luck of the year. Gradually, the tree grew, the flowers bloomed, and the shade covered the small path. Every weekend morning, I walked out to the familiar garden, holding a bamboo broom, slowly sweeping the fallen leaves of the laurel, Barringtonia acutangula, and bougainvillea.

The rustling sound of dry leaves under the broom is like the whisper of time, slow and steady, not hurried. Each step the broom takes is a beat of calmness. I sweep the leaves as if I am cleaning my heart. Each falling petal is a reminder: all beautiful things can quietly leave, and the only thing we can do is cherish them while they are still present.

Without warning, without fanfare, the tiny laurel flowers quietly bloomed in the night. When the morning light appeared, the sweet, gentle fragrance filled the air. The pure white petals seemed to be distilled from the bright moonlight, from the gentle wind, from the purest things of heaven and earth. Those tiny petals filled the front yard. I sat down on the flower carpet, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath of that fragrance. At moments like that, I felt my heart light.

There were mornings when I opened the door to see a patch of bright red flowers of the Indian laurel tree that had fallen all over the yard. The flower threads were as thin as silk, dyeing the ground with a brilliant color, making me stand there in awe, staring at the carpet of red flowers, unable to bear to sweep them away. I opened my chest, took a deep breath, letting the color of the flowers color my cheeks, letting each breath be filled with peaceful happiness.

In the sunny seasons, bunches of bougainvillea flowers bloom one after another, painting the sky a rosy pink. Bougainvillea is fragile but it endures through the years, resilient on each dry branch. Someone once told me: “Why plant bougainvillea flowers that will fall all over the yard, making sweeping them tiring!” and I could only smile. Because each person has their own way of reaching happiness.

There are days when no flowers bloom in the garden, just the cool green of the leaves, the sound of birds hopping from branch to branch and the wind chimes tinkling in the gentle breeze. But I still feel grateful to be back in the garden. Because nature always has its own way of soothing me, even when the flowers are not blooming, the garden is still full of green vitality.

I love this garden because it is where I find myself again. In the sound of falling leaves, in the scent of flowers, I have time for myself. Because right now, I am not a busy mother, not a worried wife, nor a busy employee, but I am intact with simple happiness. I sit down beside it, quietly watching the green buds, caressing each pure petal and listening to time passing through each leaf, each petal.

I love this garden because it is my family’s home, a place for the people I love the most. Just by turning around, I will see them still beside me, still safe and sound asleep behind the half-closed door. That thought makes me feel calm. No matter how tiring life is, just one morning sitting in the middle of the garden, listening to the breath of the earth and sky and knowing that the people I love are always by my side. I know that happiness is more than enough.

In the end, everyone’s life is just a collection of mornings like that. There are days when flowers bloom, and days when flowers wither. But if we know how to stop, how to breathe deeply, how to love the present moment, then even silence has its own fragrance, even a falling leaf becomes a miracle. And me, in the middle of a small garden, in the middle of a peaceful weekend morning, I find myself happily living a full and grateful life.

Trang Dinh

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/van-hoa/202510/khu-vuon-binh-yen-f4e0857/