Melanie is a creative director and model living in the East Village, NYC. While in quarantine she told me that she was reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and connected to its timeless message and relevance during the pandemic.
“Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe..." —The Secret Garden
H: What drew you to The Secret Garden at this moment in time?
M: Visiting my family for the first time since lockdown, I checked my mom’s book stash. It’s a combination of our old books – Waldos, Cliffords and Good Night Moons as well as fine books, puzzles and old porcelain dolls.
I found a used copy of The Secret Garden and it seemed like a perfect read right now. When I was little I would pretend to be the lead character Mary as well as it inspired my fascination with collecting antique keys.
I have a whole collection of antique keys. There is something very nostalgic and magical about trying to find a key to a locked door and vice versa.
H: Very true – there is so much possibility and hope in a key – especially after days on end locked in small apartments during quarantine. There is a deep longing for the ability to open a door and find your way out into a new magical place…
“The secret garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place."
— The Secret Garden
M: Very much like Colin and his father in the book, I have been living in seclusion and a heightened state of fear due to quarantine. Our day in Central Park was my first time in a place of nature since the pandemic began. I thought – oh my god, I forgot. There are trees. It is all so beautiful.
M: That day for me was truly a spring awakening and a coming out of the darkness – very similar to Mary’s now that I think of it. In the book, Mary is very unhappy with her new home – a dark Victorian mansion – so she sets out exploring the grounds. After being outside everyday, the fresh air literally changes her and seeps into her soul. She has an appetite again, she desires to have adventures , and longs to make friends.
It really spoke to me how nature wakes up the body and stirs the soul; moreover, how the garden becomes a place of physical and emotional healing.
Now more than ever, I am more grateful for green spaces – the magic and the healing that they hold.
"But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst, he actually found he was trying to believe in better things..."
—The Secret Garden
"...and the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles."
—The Secret Garden
Explore the Secret Garedn
For a more in depth look on how The Secret Garden is a story for our time and its message regarding mental health, I highly recommend a wonderful article by Aida Edermariam for The Guardian – Solitude, Sunshine and Sanctuary in The Secret Garden.
Mentioned above by Melanie and I, watch Francis Ford Coppola’s mesmerizing 1993 film adaptation directed by Agnieszka Holland with a stunning score by Zbigniew Preisner – The Secret Garden
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