Villandry

We recently visited the beautiful gardens of the Château de Villandry. They were really spectacular. The gardens are laid out in three tiers, symbolizing three important human needs- sustinence, beauty, transcendence. I admit it, I'm still on the first level. My favorite was the vegetable garden! Check out those leeks! The third tier is a water garden. Here are three of my favorite people transcending all the insignificant problems of youth. When preparing to visit Villandry, I was reminded of my first visit to France over twelve years ago and my impressions of the gardens of Versailles. I felt like I wanted to run over and open the gate and FREE all of the plants. They reminded me a strained little boy looking longingly out the window, his hair slicked over to one side, wearing a starched toddler-sized three-piece suit and tie and sitting on his hands, trying desperately not to fidget. "Let that boy out to play!" I thought as I walked through the rows of tightly sculpted shrubbery and geometric patterns.

This time, I was less fixated on freeing the poor plants and more delighted by the order and beauty of it all. Perhaps it's because my own life often descends into chaos, or perhaps it's because I learned that in the middle ages, monks passed the time creating these gardens in elaborate geometric patterns. I love to imagine a monk hundreds of years ago, bending over his precious garden plot in the early morning light, a small, secret grin on lips as he contemplates his next clever design. On the corner of each square plot at Villandry, there is a rose planted, symbolic of divine love, in rememberance of those monks and their toil.I did chuckle when I saw the pumpkins laid out in a perfect square, surrounded by a tightly clilpped hedge, off-limits to everything but the eyes. Each pumpkin sat primly upon a small tile square. It made me think of the happy, messy chaos of northeastern pumpkin patches as noisy childen tear around looking for the perfect one.