{"id":182563,"date":"2025-10-15T11:38:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T09:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=182563"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:56","slug":"de-geheime-tuin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2025\/10\/15\/de-geheime-tuin\/","title":{"rendered":"The secret garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marlies Dekkers presented a poetry collection about autumn, and I wasn\u2019t there. The next day I fell ill. I\u2019m doing an internship, and this was the first time I had to tell my supervisors that I couldn\u2019t come in. Luckily, they insisted that I shouldn\u2019t work until I was fully recovered. So I put my nightdress back on and went to sleep.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPauline Wiersema<\/a>, \t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

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\u2019d been in bed, and so I stepped outside. Behind the mosque, a woman and her dog appeared from a street I hadn\u2019t 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 \u2018beware of the dog\u2019 sign.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0The Secret Garden<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Back home, I watched videos of Marlies Dekkers\u2019 presentation \u2013 the lingerie designer who made the bondage look appealing to women who read\u00a0Linda<\/em>. At the invitation of Stichting Het Park<\/em>, a project funded by Droom en Daad<\/em>, she had compiled an anthology of her favourite poems about autumn. Marlies read Rilke, accompanied by a trumpet, surrounded by bouquets, and I wasn\u2019t there. But unexpectedly, I had spent a restorative afternoon in the Essenburgpark.<\/p>\n\n\t

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