What’s that in the garden?

My mother dreamed of a garden, just like the one I’ve grown; she would have put a bird bath exactly where mine is but there would be tacky flags nearby in her garden as opposed to tasteful statues in mine. The woman couldn’t cook rice or ice cubes, I was curious how she figured she would maintain a whole garden. I loved growing up in the city, yes, but no part of me misses the lifestyle of apartment dwelling.

The garden is so green today; it’s amazing how many shades can appear in one space as the sun moves all around it. My mornings have become intimately intertwined with the budding and blossoming of the rose bushes and moonflowers, I know all of the center caterpillars by name. The garden is vast, an ecosystem; if I had to elect a mayor among the population it would be the willow tree that sits in the corner casting a lovely shadow down to protect sensitive plants and searching for water. I think they call it a weeping willow because it loves water, sometimes I sit under it and cry with my face purposefully positioned to the soil. I think about how much time has passed since my mom’s physical body fell sick & left this world. I sit here and I stare up at the sky through these weeping branches, tears run down my face and I think of how this has been my only goal. The garden of my dreams. Now what?

There is no way it has been in the garden for 8 years, it had to have blown in from recent storms- that shiny cylinder. I have sat here, on my stoop in front of my garden, everyday for 2,920 days give or take and I have never noticed a silver object near the bird bath until today. I wonder if it’s my mom playing a joke on me from the other side, I think she does little things to mess with me now & then. The sun is hitting the circular solid in a way that perfectly blinds me on my top stair so I have to move down a few, bringing me closer to my subject of interest. I know perfectly well I could just stand up, walk right over and pick the damn thing up but I prefer to have an idea of what I may be getting into. What things come in cylinder?

It could be a thing all of it’s own, a vase perhaps.

Maybe it is a can of sorts

A cup or chalice?

Some piece of material or equipment?

Did someone place this here? Did it blow here in the wind? Where did this thing come from? I cannot say for sure, I lost my elevated advantage to the sun, but it seems that the top of the object is open; there could be something inside of it. If something was inside of the cylinder, what could it be?

A creature (hopefully not)

Some sort of food?

Liquid?

Powder, chemicals?

It could be entirely hollow, I suppose

I set down my cup of lemonade- my favorite thing to drink in the afternoon air while I breathe in my garden - and I creep toward the cylinder, peering curiously into it as I get closer. There doesn’t seem to be any creature, food, liquid, chemicals, nothing in it really. It doesn’t seem to be entirely hollow, either. Picking it up I inspect the outside, noticing the intricate indentations purposefully placed as a design all over it. The end I perceived as the bottom has a little glass cap covering it. A kaleidoscope? I use my t shirt to clean off the part I was analyzing from my stoop & I walk back to sit down with the cylinder in hand. After a refreshing sip of my lemonade, I take a deep breath and look into the kaleidoscope.

Suddenly, time ceases to exist and I am traveling through dimensions with ease. I see the existence of myself as a baby, toddler, child, teen, now, all at once in a swirling time loop that I suddenly understand as reality. I see my mom, she has her garden and at the same time she has me and we are happy and everything somehow exists all at once.

Time goes by, unknown how long, when I pull back from the kaleidoscope it is dark outside. I retreat inside my home and place the cylinder down on my kitchen table as I hurry into the kitchen. I splash my face with cold water, peering back to the clock on the oven which reads “11:11” when right before I went outside today, that same clock read that same time. Had 12 hours gone by?

The images of my mother are reeling in my head; I saw it all so vividly, her worlds were superimposed over one another and all a reality to some version of her. I walk over to the table to further study the object which I notice is no longer where I set it down. I feel delirious. Looking around my home, the kaleidoscope is nowhere to be found. Considering I could have forgotten it on the stoop I flip on my porch lights & step outside, immediately I am blinded by the reflection of my lights in the silveriness of a cylinder near the bird bath in my garden. Had I returned it where I found it?

I walk out to the birdbath in the middle of the garden, sit down criss cross apple sauce, put the kaleidoscope up to my eyes & I am away again. I see the way my life is in other worlds, everything is concurrent and I learned how to garden from my mom. Despite her lack of green thumbs or adequate time spent with me in any real, tangible, garden in this reality there was a place in time happening still where she had that garden she dreamed of. She not only tended that garden, she taught me that garden and that is how I have come to bloom so fully.