sneaky spaces

This was my view early this morning when I arrived on campus.

I like the sneaky spaces between buildings, and I like it when they have beautiful plantings. This one is so-so. Better than it was, but not what it could be. 

Once, in graduate school, I was scooting to class in a hidden space like this, along with a kazillion other students, and I suddenly caught a whiff of the most lovely fragrance. I stopped and looked all around, trying to figure out what was blooming. It was February, and I could not see a thing. 

A very dark man in a turban noticed me and also stopped, and we both sniffed a while, giggling a bit, and then he shot me a big smile, threw his arms over his head, and said, "IT IS A MYSTERY! A GIFT!" I never saw him again, but all these years later, I remember that wonderful smile, that encounter.

Curiously, I think that campus encouraged those kinds of moments.  The buildings were not pretty.  Quite hideous, in fact.  But the sneaky spaces were tended.  Not manicured, but filled with life and fragrance and texture.

Some spaces seem to be designed to be observed from a distance — like most of this campus where I work.  Sure, I like this view, like it enough to have paused to take a picture.  But as soon as I did, I thought about that man in the turban.  I prefer spaces that feel redeemed and cared for, with little gifts of fragrance, rather than the ones that feel manufactured.  

Perhaps once these plants fill in a bit, there will be a bit more mystery and life back here, but it seems like we have been on a denuding campaign the last several years.  So many beautiful old, out-of-fashion rhododendrons have been removed, ostensibly because they were obstructing the views of the architecture, which, I admit, is striking.  Crossing my fingers that this bit will be left to go a little wild.