The Secret Garden

I’m looking out at a rainy day today, and it reminds me of being a kid. Oh, how I loved a rainy day for reading my favorite books! If I’m being honest, I loved any kind of weather for reading. I can’t exactly say that too much has changed in my adult life.

Maybe that’s why I put a secret library in my book. In a world where the “library” in Abigail’s world consists of a room full of on-demand technology that can give the “reader” a virtual reality experience without even the need for a headset, a book would be quite the anomaly! So, when Abigail finds a dusty old library with floor to ceiling books, along with so many other surprises, she is in love. As I’ve been writing the pages where she discovers this sacred place, I’ve wondered what books should she find there. I started reading so many children’s books and digging into stories that serve my plot, but then I found The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Full head slap.

How could I not have thought of this book first? Abigail and Mary Lennox would be best friends if they could get over each other’s sour attitudes. And this book has such a special place in my life. Years ago, I directed the play version of this story with some high school students during a time of profound loss for all of us. I won’t get into the painful details, but working on this play healed us. We leaned into allowing ourselves to face our grief and our profound pain, and it gave us something important to cultivate. Real relationships with each other. Dedicating ourselves to creating something on that stage with such a beautiful story, that would affect our audience just like it affected us.

We had a special night during our rehearsal period where I gave the students little golden keys, which was a key element of the story, and we had a private ceremony together where we promised not to lock up our grief or our hardships. We promised to cultivate the gardens in our lives, and we promised to stop trying to do it all alone. It was one of the most earnest and impactful moments of my entire directing career.

So, now, to weave that story into my first novel and have my protagonist relate so heavily with Mary just feels so momentous. Even on a reflective, rainy day, like today, it’s a bit hard to put into words what it means to add The Secret Garden to Abigail’s library. To carry that particular experience into this chapter of my life means more than I could really express.

To the cast and crew of that Secret Garden therapy project from all those years ago, I will never forget what we did on that stage. Your faces have wafted through the forefront of my memory lately, and I carry you with me into Abigail’s journey. Thanks for tagging along. I hope you are still keeping those keys handy and those gardens cultivated. You are loved.