Time future contained in time past

    

    "To garden is to elide past, present and future; it is a defiance of time. [...]

      The great defiance of time is our capacity to remember - the power of memory. Time streams away behind us, and beyond, but individual memory shapes, for each of us, a known place. We own a particular piece of time; I was there, then, I did this, saw that, felt thus. And gardening, in its small way, performs a memory feat: it corrals time, pinning it to the seasons, to the gardening year, by summoning up the garden in the past, the garden to come. A garden is never just now; it suggests yesterday, and tomorrow; it does not allow time its steady progress."

    Penelope Lively, Life in the Garden.

    There's another snippet from the book here.

Comments

[Val]

That is lovely ..thank you ..I shall have to chase that book and read more.

Remembering gardens is also very evocative isn't it. I remember my Grandparents garden...gravel drive, curved bench seat guarded by currant bushes,perennial fuchsias of rich clashing pinks and reds, orchard with rough grass and mossy bark, galvanized metal water butts with bubbling green algae..

[Fran H-B]

As with Penelope Lively's memoir Ammonites and Leaping Fish this looks a book to be savoured and re-read. A must-have for my gardening shelf.

[Callmemadam]

'The gardener is the only person to whom time gives more than it takes away.' Beverley Nichols.

Quoted from memory so may not be exactly right.

[Cornflower]

Yes, very much so.

[Cornflower]

Another good line.

[Cornflower]

Lovely description, Val!

[Claire]

I think you've helped me with a C******** gift. Thank you.

[Cornflower]

You're welcome!