Dreaming of the Garden by Jess Henshall – Part III — Falmouth University English & Creative Writing

When I open the door of the studio, I am met with the smell of cedar. It lines the inside walls of the room in narrow panels, holding in layers of insulation and filling the tiny space with its gentle aroma. I sit and watch the harbour from its windows, half covered by new growth from the trailing jasmine, and breathe in the scent of the wood.

*

In the top terrace of the garden, my dad built a bike shed from scraps of wood. He treated it with linseed oil and bitumen paint to match the blackened fencing, and my mum covered the roof with a liner and planted camomile to soften the shed into the garden. On two walls, the sides facing the sea, he fitted small windows a neighbour had discarded, and the room was given light and a view. We laughed at what a waste it seemed for the space to just be used for two bikes.

A year went by and the shed became a talking point with visitors to our house, who praised my dad’s craftsmanship and its view of the sea. My mum tended to the green roof, removing weeds that stunted the growth of her plants, whilst leaving others to become part of its landscape, and we watched insects make it their playground. The shed settled into garden, but all the while we felt we were wasting its potential. We used the space as storage for all our miscellaneous possessions — fishing rods, snorkels, bait barrels, spare parts — so when we looked in through the windows, all we could see was a mess we had accumulated.

I dreamt of using it as a studio, to sit and write, to watch the waves as I sheltered from the rain whilst still held in the depths of the garden. It could be a place to breathe, away from the often claustrophobic atmosphere of family life; I imagined all the space my mind would have to create within its walls.

It wasn’t until I started to make silver jewellery, and needed somewhere to explore my craft, that we transformed the bike shed into the studio I had lusted after. In piles of firewood offered for free, my dad found Canadian cedar shingles, cedar panels, and long lengths of old pitch pine. We scrounged offcuts of insulation, filled the room with tools and trinkets, and it became my place to make, to write, to think.

*

I sit on a swivel chair in the little space left by the work bench, and leave the top half of the stable door open, letting air in so I don’t gas myself with fumes from the butane torch when I solder. From here I watch sea pinks flutter in the breeze, rooted in the roof of the log shelter which stores seasoning wood for later months. Music plays from an old stereo, but I keep the volume low to not drown out birdsong from the goldfinches landing on the telephone wires opposite. Their calls dance on the wind, drifting through the garden, and I watch for their flashes of red and yellow through the glass.

Passing the studio on her way up from the bottom terrace, my mum hands me a posy of warm lavender stems over the door. I place them before a wall adorned with dried seed heads and a shelf of old ceramics holding hammers and an assortment of tools. Like our garden, the studio is a patchwork of found materials housing found objects, and within its walls I am safe to create. This is my space.

I smell cedar wood

and freshly picked lavender

drying in the sun.

IN MY GARDEN: WEEDS

Dandelions / Taraxacum

Dove’s foot cranesbill / Geranium molle

Enchanter’s nightshade / Circaea lutetiana

Green alkanet / Pentaglottis sempervirens

Hart’s tongue fern / Asplenium scolopendrium

Herb robert / Geranium robertianum

Maidenhair spleenwort / Asplenium trichomanes

Mind-your-own-business / Soleirolia soleirolii