Wintergreen, and the limits of domesticity, in the Bewitched Garden

Photo of wintergreen plants by Robert Benner, Flickr Creative Commons license.
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Today is my first day of housesitting at Bewitched Garden, in the north suburbs of Seattle. My friends, who gave their house that name because of its intricate back-yard garden, have departed for the marketplaces and fresh SIM-cards of the former Byzantium.

I'm in a house packed with good fiction, a shy, basement-dwelling gray cat, two small dogs (one with tall, fringed ears that leap in his friendliness, the other pint-sized and barking to ward me off, the new intruder), and an unfamiliar microwave.

First thing this morning, coffee was in order. Preparing to re-heat some left in an urn by the airport-scramblers, I tapped a button that read “microwave” (it apparently does other things: toast, de-frost, broadcast CBC…) on the electronic box above the stove. The printed screen immediately suggested, “Bacon?”

Ah, a non-Kosher microwave. These things usually start with “popcorn,” but figuring I’d go with the flow, I pressed “forward." The machine queried, “Center cut?” -- becoming pressing in its specificity. 

High-grade pork, it wanted. Okay, I said. Forward arrow, again. 

The screen had a further inquiry: “1-2 slices?”

Not for the noncommittal, steamed-vegetables substituted by Lipton-in-a-cup, microwave-user, this machine.

I pressed “yes” and watched as my coffee mug rotated.

The oversized crockery mug, its side painted with holly branches and kilned to a matte, bas-relief finish, made me think: Perhaps I too should have such mugs.

In my scrappy way, with my un-updated apartment and thrift-store items, perhaps I wasn’t setting myself up for success. I’m setting my goals too low, I reflected to myself over my good coffee, looking at the screen of the PowerMac as I typed.  

I thought about how European houses and Turkish apartments are smaller, the beds narrower, the luxuries decreased. At the same time, I realized: Yes, but our culture (and most contemporary ones) is about the small things that make us feel settled in a place. 

The house is a 1928 bungalow. It has lovely windows and well-restored interiors. Its details are subtle, design-aware. On the back doorstep, tiny painted stones and rounds of mirror balance near a railing. They’re something to look at, meant to catch the light.

I woke this morning with light at the fine, square-set windows, each placed just where I would have it in the 1928 walls. Around me were soft, many-thread-count sheets, several pillows, and a warm and fluffy comforter.

Through the open windows, the sounds of birds singing and calling drifted up from trees and the pine-needled ground. Conifers could be seen through the shades.

I live in Seattle, but not in a place where I can sit in a garden, hear birdcalls, or smell conifers.

My home is walking distance from nearly everything exciting in the city, in my point of view. It’s a short walk from museums, urban parks, and much people-watching. It is near coffee houses and art spaces and interesting little night clubs.

This morning I sat with my coffee at an iron-work table in the Bewitched Garden.

It was clear, even there, that some things are always about perspective. I had a choice of two garden tables, one near the center of the patio, the other larger but stacked with outdoor chair-cushions under an umbrella.

Trying out the table without cushions, I realized that this section of yard was lower, more seeped by Seattle morning damp. A bit to the left, under the umbrella, the air was lovely and I leaned back with my mug.

Wintergreen plants grew near the table, I knew. My friend had instructed me to keep an eye out for them. She’d often had wintergreen as a child in Michigan. “It tastes like gum,” she said, this morning, before they scrambled for their late-arriving taxi.

The garden is indeed bewitched, its paths meandering like a country stream. They begin on the left side of the yard and pass a trellised grape vine, beds of violets and something like wild ginger, and a slender tree that might be a peach tree (it doesn’t produce, I’m told). 

In addition, there are Japanese maples with their starry fall foliage, a shed in the corner, an iron bed-stead around which plants poke and grow, a few plaques and signs, a thin iron canopy over a bench -- its supports hung with a sparkly-sided lamp with a lavender bulb, herb gardens in squares, trellised wisteria, a side garden, and three gnarled apple trees set like benign witches around the yard.

I look forward to exploring the garden, and its wintergreen. 

Photo of single wintergreen berry by Nicholas_T, Flickr Creative Commons license.

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