Surviving. Smiling.

I wonder if anyone else has ever built a house with gritted teeth and a tight smile, as I did. I liked the old place you see, the one that’s no longer there.

I had run from my house in middle-of-the-day darkness, with flames sprouting from the bushes, leaping to take possession of the timber deck. Two dogs on a leash, a torch and the getaway car. Next time I evacuate from anywhere I’ll be sure to remember my wallet.

Feeling stupid

I was angry at fate.

There was no point in blaming anyone, although like other naive city dwellers I would have liked some clear and timely warnings. For years I felt stupid I hadn’t seen that one coming, but all public information was deceptively reassuring, despite burnt leaves falling from the sky.

My little bit of paradise went up in smoke, like most of my suburb did that day. You don’t need to see the photos I snapped obsessively in the weeks that followed. Just turn on the news during any Australian summer and you’ll get the idea – shocked people standing in rubble and soot, telling the world that everything will be alright. We survived.

Remembering

It wasn’t the stock-standard house that was so special, although it faced true north – for northern hemispherians, my house faced the sun. Good light during every season and warm in winter.

It was the garden I’d fallen in love with several years before. A deck from the lounge room onto the lawn. My first ever garden with trees old enough to provide shade.

It had a cottage-garden feel to it, with year-round colour provided by flowering shrubs and trees, including a lilac, and a port wine magnolia that I discovered growing underneath ground cover.

Manageable beds of flowers, even roses. Echinacea and Japanese windflowers waving out the front.

I didn’t have the experience and imagination to create a space like this, a garden that surprises and delights. But I could weed and mulch and repair the watering system chewed by teething puppies. The old paling fence was unable to stand up to their escape attempts, so an entire collection of designer leashes was used to prop and tie up gaping planks.

Planning

I submitted building plans with hastily and pointlessly scribbled tree outlines. The planning police wanted a garden plan. There. Nobody ever checked what types of trees were represented or if they were ever planted. That must have been those ‘special recovery planning rules’. Whatever.

But I needed a vision of what the future might look like and found a garden designer at the Recovery Centre.

She came to my block on a bleak winter’s day, other people’s rubbish blowing across the ground. And my place consisting of one dead tree, a stack of rescued and twice-moved pavers, as well as a pile of treasured boulders from my old garden that eventually disappeared when the builders cleaned up. Breathe.

Listening

I described the garden that used to be there and the one I thought I might want, even though I couldn’t picture it. Australian, Asian. Not too much cottage, I’m too busy. And over there used to be that beautiful white magnolia. Should I have roses?

She came back a couple of weeks later with a sketch. How did you know exactly what I wanted, I asked her. I’m a good listener, she said.

Dreaming

Here’s the plan that kept me going for another year until my garden was built by a construction crew with muscle and dedication. A curved retaining wall, carefully crafted …

A dream of a new place. Surviving.