Remembering Monet's Garden

It was the hottest day I can remember. It was hotter than the time I went to the Mayan ruins at Tulum in Mexico and nearly blacked out it was so hot. Even so, my mother and I made our way through the Paris Métro from our hotel in Montmartre to the biggest train station in Paris: the Gare St. Lazare. I felt it was especially iconic, because Monet painted it seven times in his lifetime. I was still getting my bearings in French after years of not speaking it, but I managed to explain where we were going to the ticket seller and she gave us what we needed. We got on a train to Vernon, north of the city, and we rode away from Paris through the lush green countryside. At Vernon, we left the train station and caught a shuttle bus to Giverny, which was outside of the little town. On arrival at Giverny, we have to walk several minutes to find Monet’s actual property, but there are signs, and a million other tourists along the way. We stood in line for tickets for two whole hours in the blazing sun, leaning against the pink stucco back wall of Monet’s house and not even realizing it until we got in. The heat was bad, and shade was not much better, so we passed the time with homemade ice cream from the wagon across from our queue. I had blackberry, or mure in French, and Mom had fraise. Strawberry. Pink like the sides of Monet’s house.

We finally get into the grounds, and the main garden is spread before us like a brilliant patchworked tablecloth, broad and bold, full of colors like I’ve never seen. The pictures I took still don’t quite do it justice; it was brighter because of the sun that day. So bright that it was blinding. It was perfect.

So my mom and I make our way along the front of Monet’s pink house with the dark green shutters, with the ivy crawling all over the roof and the sides. We go in, and wander from room to room, shuffling between Asian tourists and unhappy French children. The furniture is all original, perfectly placed, and the walls are clean and bright; each room is a different color: pink, yellow, blue, white, lilac. Like Easter. Like May Day. The walls are adorned with copper pots in the kitchen and Monet’s personal collection of Japanese woodblock prints in every other room and corridor. It’s all very impressive. It feels loved, lived-in, and well cared for. Beautiful.

We leave the house and wander the gravel pathways among the flowers, taking a million pictures as we go, astonished into silence by the color combinations, the arrangements of texture and size and shape. The gardening is exquisite. It’s supposed to be just like how he planted it at its peak. He knew exactly where to put things, how they would look, but it’s the kind of genius that you would never have guessed at yourself.

At the bottom of the main garden there are signs indicating that the water garden is across the road, accessible by a tunnel under the street. We follow it, and emerge on a slender pathway that winds through a bamboo grove with the stream that feeds the water garden running alongside. Another stroke of genius; the bamboo masks the entire garden until you get to the end of the path. The journey there is easy and cool and green and shady, and we take our time. When we finally turn the bend, the water garden is revealed suddenly before us, like a stage, or an immense work of art, which of course it is. You can see everything in that moment: the pond, the water lilies, the willows, the little boat, the green Japanese footbridge, everything… And I just stood there for a long time, unable to move. I don’t know how long I stood there. I stood very still and just stared at the whole thing. It felt so familiar, like I had been there before, but I know I hadn’t. It felt like coming home to something you’ve always dreamed of. It felt a little bit like church: the beauty and reverence of a glorious place, full of peace and perfection. It felt like… like God made that garden just for that moment for me to see it all revealed, after all those years of me as a kid staring at paintings in books and wishing I knew how he really saw things, wishing I could see them for myself. And there it was, and there I was, and it looked exactly how he had painted it. Home.

Finally I had to move, so I caught up to Mom along the narrow path along the perimeter of the pond. We took more pictures along the way, but finally I moved ahead and found an open place on the railing of the Japanese footbridge, my most favorite of Monet’s painting subjects. Mom took a picture of me, and I felt that I had achieved something. Finished something. Completed something in my life. Something important. It smelled like heaven, full of wisteria all over the bridge, and it felt like paradise, even with a million other tourists pushing by. It didn’t matter, because I was finally there.

After catching our breath in the shade a while, we wandered back through the main garden, through the gift shop, and into the little restaurant outside the grounds, Les Nymphéas. Waterlilies. We had the most delicious salads in the entire world there, and finished the meal with more homemade ice cream. I had mango, and Mom got blackberry, because she’d been jealous of my first flavor.

The walk to the bus, the bus to the train, the train to Paris were all a bit of a haze, because I was so hot and so exhausted and so… full of the vision I had consumed that I was a bit out of sorts the rest of the day. It had been worth it, though. Being heat exhausted was fine by me. I had seen it all with my own eyes and known the truth. It was like reaching the top of a flight of stairs and looking down on something grand and beautiful. It was just right.