The secret garden

Marlies Dekkers presented a poetry collection about autumn, and I wasn’t there. The next day I fell ill. I’m doing an internship, and this was the first time I had to tell my supervisors that I couldn’t come in. Luckily, they insisted that I shouldn’t work until I was fully recovered. So I put my nightdress back on and went to sleep.

By the afternoon, my room had started to feel too small. A walk would probably do me good. With my scarves and sweaters on, I was just as warm as I’d been in bed, and so I stepped outside. Behind the mosque, a woman and her dog appeared from a street I hadn’t noticed before. It was a road without a pavement, made of cracked asphalt. On the left stood detached white wooden houses that reminded me of Sweden. Each gate carried a ‘beware of the dog’ sign.

The road led to a little park. I crossed a narrow stretch of water and, standing on a beam, watched a blue heron intent on its meal. A climbing plant had taken over a tree. The city felt far away as I stepped over brambles and spotted a steep staircase. At the top, I found myself facing a wall, behind which I could hear the railway. Walking along the wall and down again, I soon left the park from another side. I turned out to be still close to home. It felt as though I had just discovered The Secret Garden.

Back home, I watched videos of Marlies Dekkers’ presentation – the lingerie designer who made the bondage look appealing to women who read Linda. At the invitation of Stichting Het Park, a project funded by Droom en Daad, she had compiled an anthology of her favourite poems about autumn. Marlies read Rilke, accompanied by a trumpet, surrounded by bouquets, and I wasn’t there. But unexpectedly, I had spent a restorative afternoon in the Essenburgpark.