Heroes Not Zombies

When we moved to this house in the Charente five years ago, one of the most attractive things was a glorious “Boston Ivy” growing up the ancient tall wall which divided this garden from the one next door.

We rent this property and the landlord asked me to keep the vine trim so it didn’t grow over the top of the wall. Over the years I got quite good at it, but during the seasons where the leaves covered the vine it was pretty challenging to trim at the top. I was at the very top of an extending ladder and reaching above my head to trim to runaway creepers. A friend of mine calls this plant a “mile a minute” plant because it grows so quickly. She chose a good name for it.

Through the seasons this vine brought lots of life to the garden. Several birds nested in it every Spring, and it buzzed with hundreds of bees in the Summer. In the autumn whole flocks of starlings would descend on it to eat the berries. It gave me experiences I’ve never had before, the most amazing of which was late summer when the seed pods would pop just after the sun has passed to the other side of the wall. The first time I heard them it was like a waterfall and I was convinced water was cascading down it from the top. It wasn’t. It was the sound of thousands upon thousands of seeds and seed casings crashing down through the leaves.

Last December, after a storm, we heard a loud noise and went outside to look. This is what we saw.

Virtually the entire wall had collapsed, taking the vine with it.

It was a real shock and for a long time I’ve been grieving for the loss of wonders of that glorious vine. This gaping hole looks very like an open sore. It’s a wound. For reasons which are too technical to bother about here, there has been no progress in having the wall repaired.

So, here we are, some four months on. Spring has come again and although the wall is still a pile of rubble now, the vine has woken from it’s winter slumbers.

I have to say – it is starting to look WAY better!

I know that when the time comes and the neighbour gets builders in to repair the wall, the vine will be removed (at least that’s what our landlord says). But until that time, I’ll continue to delight in the LIFE of this incredible plant. (And, yes, I think we all realise the plant might have had something to do with the fall of the wall!)

So, this has been a metaphor for me. It began with a traumatic, sudden catastrophe. Then we had to live with the wound. Now we are seeing the recovery of the vine and how it brings beauty back. How it transforms something ugly into something glorious.