a new child

Never did I think that suddenly there would come a new little life into our world; we have a small piece of soil, maybe a meter wide and a few meters long, between our parking space and the house and this little unused walkway has now become our little Japanese garden. For half a year we have been thinking about this little garden-to-be, imagining the beauty, talking about what we wanted to have in front of the fake bamboo fence. At first my wife was a bit reluctant, wondering why we needed a Japanese garden at all, but she could not stay unaffected by my enthusiasm and soon we were dreaming of a beautiful walkway lined with stones, moss, a Japanese maple and a little stone lantern.

Never did I think that suddenly there would come a new little life into our world; there was something missing in our image, we both felt. We talked about flowers, but came to the conclusion that simple is more when it comes to our narrow little 坪庭, tsuboniwa, the name for a small garden where niwa is garden and tsubo is a measurements of land about 3,3 square meters in size (come to think of it, I wonder if our garden is not more or less exactly one tsubo big). We talked about bamboo, about Japanese pampas grass, about mondo grass, but nothing felt right. When my mother-in-law came to dinner one evening we talked about our garden and she said why don’t you have a pine tree there. A pine tree – I have dreamt of having a pine tree, I love pine trees, the smell, the needles, the bark, but that we could fit a pine tree in our little tsubo garden…

Never did I think that suddenly there would come a new little life into our world; and not just any life – now I am a father of a 70 years old little beautiful five needle pine, 五葉松 (goyoumatsu). The gardener how helped us make the Japanese garden became very excited when we asked if it was possible to put a little pine tree in our garden and he brought us two small goyoumatsu and showed us when he came. We fell in love at first sight, both my wife and I. Our new baby is a whole world in a little pot, at least a little forest. And when thinking about that someone has been caring for this little tree, loving it, for seventy years – it feels like the greatest of responsibilities and an immense honor to take over the care and continue loving this little microcosm for many many years to come. And I am sure our son will help us – he loves playing with water and I am certain that he will be happy to have a little big sibling in his every day life, together with me giving the tree water, removing last years needles, and smiling at the beauty of live.