The Garden of Whimsy

They were bought, both of them, a few years ago in a dollar store. I’ve always liked gargoyles. They gave me comfort as a little girl walking around the streets of Paris with my nanny when mom was singing. They peered down at me from the walls of the great churches with a knowing smile. I was told they kept bad spirits away from the innocent, and children were their first priority.

Every new town or city I looked for them, finding even one gargoyle made me feel instantly at ease in any city. Gargoyles were different everywhere. Some had great wings, some little bony wings and others had no wings at all. Some smiled, some had intense peering eyes, I could see how they might frighten the bad intentioned among us. I had nothing to fear from them, they were all my friends. The great sculptor and architects often created Gargoyles. My absolute favourite is by Gaudi.

Of course as I grew older I became less aware of them, and when I moved to North America I admit I barely thought of them at all, probably also because over here there were a very few gargoyles at all. I did notice a few in old Quebec and a few years ago they become trendy as garden statuary. Most were copies of ones in Europe scaled down. I had only a balcony, not nearly space for a gargoyle, not really.

Then I was faced with a pile of little gargoyles in a dollar shop. Many were injured, presumably fighting some great evil, too much for their tiny gargoyle bodies to fight off without doing them damage. I found two which were unscathed. These champions I would take home with me. I felt triumphant for having found them at such a bargain. They were a bit small to put on the balcony where a large bird could easily make off with them or a cat paw them over the roof edge.

Instead they were given a place on my television, enough evil to fight off right there. As my children became adults and a chronic illness kept me housebound I turned my attentions to decorating my balcony. This small space became a scaled down version of all I loved in the world. Great gardens, fountains. The gargoyles will fit right in.

My tiny 12 foot by 8 foot garden was becoming a sanctuary for me on my worst days and Eden on my best. The people in my life would marvel at this whimsical expression of what made me happy. When my gnome (what on earth had possessed me to buy one at all) was heaved overboard by my granddaughter, my sister bought me four blank futuristic looking gnomes, which gave me impetus to write a few gnome related stories. I was hurled into trying to write fantasy based stories, something new for me. Previously I had assumed travelling through things imaginary was something I was just not capable of, and yet these gnomes dragged me into their world.

A very large box arrived, according to a note in an envelope I had my sister to thank for the delivery. With the use of all my brute strength (between mosquito and mouse), some utility knives and much huffing and puffing, through cart board and bubble wrap, I found myself face to face with a lion. What I had become the proud owner of was a fountain. A scaled down version of a roman wall mounted font.

Without taking a moment to stand back and consider if I should accept something so frivolous and space consuming I was feverishly drilling a hole on the end wall on the balcony. By the end of the day it was mounted tightly on the wall and before I took to bed that night the lion was spitting water. It wasn’t quite the right colour, so over the next few days I researched similar monuments and approximated with paint the proper stone textures and hues.

Back to the gargoyles, I named them Pete and Ernest. Pete is the one with mischief written all over him and Ernest is the pensive somewhat sullen one. Of course they were on the television, not on the balcony. Not yet anyway.

The little gargoyles had a good view of the fountain from where they sat. My mother not long after, aware of my love for gargoyles had with love made a gargoyle in her pottery class. It could be used as a door stop or a candle holder. I put it in between the mints, gazing out like some slightly stoned gargoyle. One of my nieces gave me her hunchback of Notre Dame (the Disney variety) ball, which is nestled by the patch of cat grass.

Then as it happens, last year as I was touching up the paint on the fountain, and had a little left over. I was overwhelmed with an urge to take my indoor gargoyles, match them in colour to my fountain and put them nearby. Well with cat’s pays and other interferences they were lost and found many times over. I bought construction adhesive and glued them both to the base of the fountain. Somehow even this adhesive did nothing to keep my gargoyle doing what he pleased and going where he pleased.

Pete stayed put, Ernest disappeared until I found him again this week. He’d got wedged behind a large pot of oregano. Ernest was covered in spider silk and bits of crushed leaf and pot soil. Pete looked as though he was sniggering, engaging in a bit of “schadenfreude”. Ernest was in need of a good long soak, So he bathed in the fountain, under the open mouth of the great lion, unafraid. Ernest likes the bath, I cannot coax him out, so for now he can stay and enjoy the bath.

Some time soon when Ernest is done soaking and he’s been dried off and touched up with another coat of paint, I will again attempt to secure him with some adhesive, so cats paws and large birds will not be able to dislodge him. I’ve become a strange old woman, whose shrinking world stops at the balcony where through memories, gifts, tools, paints and imagination it is at the point of having lost nothing, it is all here. joined by memories. Even in such a small place there are always new discoveries to be made by nieces, nephews and grandchildren. It is spring once again and the garden is coming alive again, with butterflies and new plants and surprises waiting to be plucked from my imagination. No rules, no expectations, this is the place where whimsy leads me. Whimsy can lead to the old through memories of found objects or the stories of others, or forward through dreams, thoughts and imaginings. Here all is possible and should be.

There are flowers, herbs, even fruits, among them are porcelain hedgehogs, gnomes, the fountain, gargoyles and under the arbour a place to sit and paint. Every once in a while as I am busy with drawing or painting some bubbles float by and Ernest is still in the bath making bubbles and Pete is smiling a wicked smile.

Life is good here, time can stops, the mind can wander and just for a while the line between what is, and is not real, can be put on hold.