The Great Escape

A small clearing up ahead. There, shrouded amongst the long block of trees. Just off the sidewalk. A high fence that we had to climb over. On the other side, a steep and wooded hill. It was our one and only chance.

We took it.

And found ourselves at the Vandusen Botanical Gardens.

How much of that was fact? How much was fiction?

What was true was that we spent a lovely afternoon at the gardens. The great thing about Vandusen Botanical Garden is that it’s never packed with people. Perhaps paying admission has something to do with that. The grounds are manicured and well kept, with lots of interesting flowers and foliage. There’s a reflecting pond, a huge pond with lots of koi fishies, a couple of waterfalls, a zen retreat, and oh yes, wizard trees.

What Sean calls wizard trees, I call tyrannosaurus rex trees.

And the garden has a labyrinth of a maze. When we came upon it, we caught a glimpse of something off in the distance. It looked like a “wild thing”, from the Where the Wild Things Are story.

Racing to the other side of the maze, we discovered it was a sculpture of a horse on its hind legs holding a rabbit, also on its hind legs. The whole sculpture was made off wired coils. I got to say, the horse looked rather, well endowed from a certain angle.

We walked the entire garden to take in their special exhibit from Zimbabwe called Zimsculpt: 150 or so shona stone sculptures displayed strikingly around the garden.

We came across acorn-shaped blooms.

Paper lantern-liked flowers.

Pipe cleaner flowers that looked like they were flipping us the bird.

Not that we couldn’t just look at the sign and get the proper names of all these flowers. It was just more fun for us to make up the names.

A day at Vandusen Gardens made Sean and I feel like we were 13 again. When our overactive imaginations would run wild and we would see in ordinary things something wild, comical or absurd. We were transported to another world in these 4 block squared gardens. An enchanted playground for work-wearied adults to escape to.

Like Alice falling through the rabbit hole or the Prevensie children walking through that wardrobe, Vancouver seemed but a distant land. Here, we could climb stuff. Play hide and go seek. And maybe tell a tall tale or two.