I dedicate myself to gardening, despite the constant noise around. There is no need to start over with the renovations that are being done near my house, I have already talked about it before and I do not want to bring myself bad luck, since my hope is that they are about to finish. What’s more, one of the worst things about living in London is that when a house is sold, it’s not the new neighbors who arrive, but the bricklayers.
But that’s part of the package, in a place like London. It must also be said that my garden has never been very quiet. We live in a street that is quite busy and, especially during school entrance and exit times, you can hear the noise of traffic, horns and the cackling of kids all the time. The period of lockdown of 2020 was extraordinarily quiet. With the schools closed and everyone working from home, the noise of the cars was reduced to a sporadic murmur and the nearby jobs had also slowed. Never before have I heard the birds sing, enjoyed the peace and began to think about moving out of town.
But now that we are back to “normal”, I wonder if the noise is now part of me, so much so that I can no longer do without. Not so much the noise of the construction works – when they are finished it will be a relief for me – but everything else: the background noise, that is the sound produced by people going from one side to the other to carry out the normal activities of the day , who lives his life around me. I like it, in fact I think it gives more meaning to the time I dedicate to gardening. I feel that I am creating and caring for a kind of oasis. Outside here, beyond the hedge, the roar of traffic reigns – cars, trucks, cranes and excavators – as in this little green corner of the world I build a safe and quiet space for what needs quiet. And by that I also mean myself.
A new tenant
I spent last summer transforming my garden into a more natural space: I created a small pond, I thought about the plants that attract bees the most, letting the grass and plants grow uncontrolled in some places. I was a little skeptical while doing it, thinking it was just a purely aesthetic exercise, a confused attempt to find a cure to soothe my urban consciousness. Instead, the results were extraordinary: there are many more bees in the garden than I have ever seen, more butterflies, more moths, in short, more than anything. The skating insects go from one part of the crystalline surface of the water to the other, the larvae of the damsels come out to climb the stems of the reeds and go through the phase of metamorphosis, leaving behind their old skin and legs to fly away and savor their short lives. I collect the remains to examine them, they are like small armor. What a miracle, what a mystery: just a year ago, I knew absolutely nothing about it.
One day I made a mobile video of two bridesmaids getting married. You can hear the traffic and the noise created by a leaf sucker, but also the singing of birds and the hum of a hornet passing by. The damsels are attached to each other, the female lays her eggs in the pond and then they divide. The male throws himself on the female rather aggressively, then settles on a plant in the center of the pond. The sun reflects on the water, the small blue flowers of the Veronica beccabunga sway in the breeze. It is a worthy vision of the Garden of Eden, with the soundtrack offered by North London.
And as if all this wasn’t enough, it seems we also have a lizard as a tenant. When I posted a photo of him on Twitter, a wildlife expert told me it was a wall lizard. Even if you hear about it from time to time, it is really an unusual thing: it is rare to find these lizards in a city garden. I watch her as she moves through the garden through the grass, looking for the whole world like a miniature dinosaur wandering through a tiny forest. It finds its way from shade to full sun across the lawn and stops there basking in its light.
In other places the garden is filled – to tell the truth it is overflowing – with all the plants I have sown. I collect the first fruits of the season: a few salad leaves and a few beans. Then, inside the sink, I shell the beans opening the thick pods to reveal the soft felt interior. The beans are small but perfect, lime green in color and exquisitely fresh in appearance. I want to make a risotto with them, so I handle them with extreme care, as if they were pearls.
It is absurd to derive so much pleasure from a handful of legumes, less than a handful, actually. And yet it is just like that.
(Translation by Maria Chiara Benini)
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