Mirrors?

  He met my surprised echo with an explanation.

  To catch the sunlight shining south. By reflecting it. After all, there’s no light here, all day long.

  * * *

  To catch the sunlight shining south.

  That very night, I ordered three adjustable desk mirrors.

  After all, there’s no light here, all day long.

  I laid these mirrors down at suitable angles to gather the sunlight and send it to the plants; after about a year like that, I ordered three more of the same mirrors. This spring, I ordered another two more, bringing the current total to eight.

  * * *

  I never really knew what sunlight was, before I had this garden.

  While I had lived in single-family homes until my late twenties, my room in the Suyu-ri house, where I lived longest, faced north, and even the south-facing living room there was blocked by the two-story house across the yard, leaving no real opportunity to observe the movement of the sun.

  After that house, I moved often—so often that if I tried counting with my hands, I’d run out of fingers—always from one kind of apartment to another (eventually I’d lived on every floor between the first and the ninth, all except the sixth; there were some tired moments during those years when I would step into an elevator and suddenly not know which floor to press). Sunlight was like a guest in those multi-unit buildings, making repeated unsatisfying visits, entering through a southeast- or northwest-facing window to perch awkwardly in some patch of balcony or living room or bedroom for a spell, only to disappear behind unyielding concrete walls.

  * * *

  Now I can say I know a bit about sunlight.

  Built in the shape of the Korean character ㄷ, this house has no external windows that face east. The little study that looks over the inner courtyard, though, does; and the sun shines through that little east-facing window first before striding over to the inside of the front gate to shine through the kitchen window. Every time these slanting streams of noonday sun spill across the wooden floors, I am startled by the sheer force of their resolute speed.

  * * *

  On days the trees are given their sunlight, I am kept quite busy keeping pace with that speed.

  To distribute the light evenly across every tree, the angle and placement of all eight mirrors must be shifted once every fifteen minutes or so. Which was how I came to internalize a sense of the earth’s rotation.

  Likewise, over time I also came naturally to a sense of the earth’s revolution around the sun. Because the angle of the sun changes with the seasons, the placement of each mirror must be shifted, little by little, every three days or so.

  * * *

  When I catch the sunlight with my mirrors and shine them onto the trees, a window of light appears on the white north-facing wall. Inside its frame, the shadows of leaves and branches create forms akin to relief engravings.

  There is a translucent pale-green glow produced when sunlight passes through leaves. And there is a specific sensation I feel each time I see it. A sense of joy that feels almost primordial, one I intuit to be inscribed on the human genome, a result of our having lived so long in symbiosis with plants. Enchanted by that joy, I stop writing every fifteen minutes to go out into the yard and adjust the mirrors. I repeat this work until there is no more light to collect.

  * * *

  We’re catching the sunlight shining south. By reflecting it with mirrors.

  * * *

  Thus, in my garden there is light.

  There are trees that grow, nourished by that light.

  Leaves sparkle, translucent, and flowers slowly open.

  * * *

  Over the past three years, I have gradually come to realize that this work is fundamentally transforming my very constitution. As the gentle warmth of this small place holds me close, quiet. With the rhythm of the light changing each day, each moment, each season.

  [2022]

  Garden Diary

  2021

  March 21

  Because the flower bed is on the north side of the courtyard, I have positioned three mirrors to allow the trees some sunlight. When the southerly noon sun slowly passes these mirrors, a patch of light appears on the wall, like a window.

  March 22

  The Miss Kim lilac has sprouted all over with light-green leaves. They say an American soldier stationed here during the Korean War took this shrub back home with him, giving it the official name of “Miss Kim,” most likely after a woman he had some connection to. Which means that the species of lilac native to Korea is not a tree, but a shrub.

  Last week I brought in a cherry bonsai and a blueberry bush, both potted; the cherry blossoms have begun to bloom, and the blueberry flowers are holding buds.

  The hosta grows valiantly. All winter it looked as if it had withered to nothing, but then it burst up through the soil, a thing resurrected—and now it is slowly unfurling its leaves, as if finally releasing its grip.

  March 23

  Last May I planted lilac, viburnum, hosta, and liriope in the flower bed; in June I added a young maple tree and brought in a potted Glossy Abelia. Happily, all the plants survived that summer’s record-breaking fifty-four-day rainy season.

  March 24

  I had scattered some wildflower seeds into three empty pots; three days later they began to sprout, and another two weeks on, they’d grown quite a bit. A friend of the painter K—someone well versed in gardening—had jotted down a list of the seeds for me. Surely they won’t all sprout? That was my thought as I scattered all one hundred or so mixed seeds that filled the packet in question, but now they are all coming up so densely that I am starting to worry.

  As for which seeds, among the twenty or so listed, have actually sprouted? I will find out when the flowers bloom.

  March 25

  The blueberry buds were swelling only on the lower branches that had gotten more sunlight, so today I raised the angle of the mirrors. Every day, moment to moment, the light changes.

  March 29

  The young maple is growing so beautifully that it’s actually rather moving. It was much smaller and frailer, in the beginning, than the shrubs to either side, but this year it’s grown a bit taller. Of course, it’s still as fragile as ever. But in ten years or so it will grow tall and thick enough to reach the eaves. A tree holds such possibility from seed. So long as it does not die. So long as it survives. Eventually, it will grow dense and thick.

  March 30

  Despite being a kind of hosta, the plantain lily’s leaves are much more delicate. They sprout at different times, too, and the shapes of their leaves are different as well. Much softer. More subdued and quiet, in speed and in form.

  Of course, I also enjoy the cool vigor of the hosta proper.

  April 1

  It seemed the garden needed more sun, so I bought three more mirrors. From nine in the morning to three in the afternoon, the sunlight comes in at an angle the mirrors are able to catch—which keeps me very busy, adjusting their position three or four times an hour. Once three p.m. comes around and I am no longer able to bestow sunlight, I sit and quietly look over my shady garden. The garden, filled with (mirrored) light, is…so beautiful that it sometimes leaves my chest heavy and aching.

  The wildflowers I sowed have continued to grow. What’s surprising is that the bracken fern, which I wrote off as completely dead last year, is now thriving and sending up fiddleheads.

  April 2

  On days when the light is dim, the light of the mirrors grows dim as well. Unable to form a crisp rectangle on the wall, it produces a kind of halo—maybe the souls of the trees.

  I heard that tomorrow, it will rain.

  April 3

  The plantain lily leaves have grown rounded and pretty. The maple leaves are bigger now, too. And the Miss Kim lilac leaves are bigger. (Though they are small leaves still.)

  April 4

  The viburnum and the maple tree are shooting up as if they are competing against each other. At some point last night, the viburnum grew a little more. It would appear that plants eat sunlight during the day and grow bigger during the night. (Like human children.)

  April 6

  The blueberry flowers are in bloom.

  The lilac seems ready to bloom soon, too.

  April 8

  I found another way to use the mirrors and their light. It’s about taking the light reflected by the mirror and then reflecting it once more. It makes me happy when the light slants across the leaves—a feeling I assume is now a part of human nature itself, the result of evolution shaping us to live symbiotically with plants.

  April 12

  Drinking some water, I look at the trees in the courtyard.

  Spring has barely arrived and yet here we are, already headed into summer.

  April 17

  For the first time in two days, I look closely over the garden and see that flowers have bloomed. The little round blueberry flowers look quite a bit like blueberries themselves. The lilac has bloomed white. What surprises me is that the Solomon’s Seal I thought had completely died last year has somehow sprouted again, alongside the wildflowers. The resurrection of the bracken fern was similar; I was startled then, too…What I have learned is that even if something looks dead above the soil, if its roots are strong, it can come back to life.

  April 18

  Viburnum branches look like birds. Like they are taking flight.

  As for the lilac…Why are the blooms still white? Last year they definitely had a lavender cast. Did they not get enough sun?

  The plantain lilies have grown thick. Their leaves are round and beautiful. I planted them because I remembered them blooming each August and September back in the house where I lived from age eleven to twenty-five. They bore no flowers last year, but what will this year be like?

  There is no way to expand the garden, and so I imagine myself small, shrunk down to the size of a LEGO figure. Then this would be a dense, thick forest—overwhelming.

  April 23

  1. The lilac has taken on a hint of purple but it is not as deep as last year. I should look into why the color is getting fainter.

  2. Once I stopped using the mirrors to reflect light toward the wall, the maple tree started shifting on its own, turning its body toward the center of the courtyard.

  3. Purple is appearing on the white blueberry flowers.

  4. More little leaves on the bracken fern. I’ve come to understand why people talk about “pulling (things) up by the root.” Roots have power.

  April 24

  As soon as I opened the gate and walked in yesterday, I looked over the garden—and I could feel the trees suffering. The temperature had risen unexpectedly; they needed more water. I rushed to water them, and by nightfall I could feel their drooping leaves start to come back to life. The forecast for the coming week shows no rain at all. I will have to water them once every three days.

  April 25

  Yellow flowers have bloomed on the roof.

  They were blooming in 2019 as well, but when I worried about them the carpenter said it was fine to leave them be. Weeds that grow too big have to be pulled, he explained, but little ones like these don’t cause any harm.

  April 26

  I completed the novel I have been writing for seven years.

  I put the USB stick in the pocket of my jeans and walked all evening.

  May 3

  The viburnum flower stalks have yet to come up. Elsewhere, viburnums are already in bloom. I look up its flowering season and find that the stalks should have come up ages ago. (In fact, its Korean name, bulduhwa, which literally translates to “Buddha’s head flower,” was chosen because its blooms are fullest around Buddha’s birthday.) Possibly it does not plan to bloom at all this year, or it could simply be very late. Either way, you are healthy and lush, I told it inwardly, and that is more than enough. Do whatever you would like to do. (Though of course, such words likely mean nothing to a tree.)

  May 11

  Aphids have appeared at the tender ends of the viburnum’s branches, so I trimmed those parts off entirely. With the growth node cut away, it will have to grow a different branch now if it’s to get any taller. Looking into the situation more closely, I learned that viburnum flowers only come into bloom on stalks that are at least two years old. Which means this tree is likely three years old this year. Let’s agree to bloom next year, then, and just spend this season growing well.

  May 25

  The hosta that did not bloom at all last year is putting up four whole flower stalks.

  Using a wet tissue, I carefully wipe away the slightly eerie yet prettily named white pests known as “fairy bugs” I find on the viburnum branches. (Luckily, they say these are not particularly dangerous, so the branches can stay.) While engaged in this task, I see a fly narrowly escape getting caught up in a spider’s web. The viburnum and the maple tree and the lilac bush are all invading one another’s territories, struggling to claim more sunlight.

  May 31

  The viburnum sprawled so furiously outward that it covered the maple leaves, so I gathered it together with a bit of twine.

  The sunlight is good, the sky very blue.

  June 3

  The blueberry leaves grew so densely that they blocked the maple tree and failed to bear any actual fruit, so I pruned its branches a bit. Should I have wielded my shears more boldly? I will try again, when my heart has grown tougher.

  June 5

  Just now, a sparrow strolled around between two of the flowerpots before flying up onto the roof and disappearing. I thought it was a mouse at first, and put on my glasses in a total panic—only to see a truly lovely little bird. There was a butterfly in here, too, just a few days ago.

  June 6

  Because the height of the noon sun gradually gets higher and higher, I am constantly having to change the position of the mirrors. A day or two is fine, but any longer than that and the mirrors can no longer carry out their intended function. The earth rotates and revolves faster than I ever thought.

  Raising plants, one hopes only that they will grow and thrive. There is no expectation of mutual interaction. No need for jokes or wit or thanks, no warm words. All they need to do is be well.

  June 7

  The hosta flowers are blooming. These splendid flowers are the reason for the butterflies and bees.

  As I tie the viburnum with more twine so it does not grow flat against the ground, raindrops begin to fall—and I glimpse, just then, the astonishing, eerie sight of a fairy bug crawling along, its body like pure white cotton. I catch it, quick, and put it in a plastic bag…and ah, I think I can see why they call these fairy bugs. They actually don’t look like insects at all. They don’t even look like living creatures, really, or anything else from this world. And yet here they are, crawling around and eating plants!

  June 10

  I discovered four fairy bugs and brushed them away with a wet wipe. Spotting another that had camouflaged itself against the white wall, I moved to catch it…only to have it suddenly launch into the air. Fairy bugs can fly!

  June 11

  When I see the lilac grow faster than the maple tree, spreading its vines, vigorously and without hesitation, over and across the maple’s leaves—I am overcome with an urge to protect the maple tree. Like a homeroom teacher watching over the most introverted child in their class.

  June 12

  One hosta flower has come fully into bloom.

  Two sparrows that had been up on the roof came down into the courtyard and perched on the maple awhile before leaving again. They even walked a few steps around the potted blueberry bush. I felt proud, somehow, that these birds had judged the house worth visiting. When I first heard a noise up on the roof, I started and looked up—it was coming from a direction from which no sound could come. Hail, maybe, or some sort of stone dust? But then a pretty bird head popped out from the tin gutter. I felt I shouldn’t make any sound myself, so I kept very still and watched, quiet.

  June 20

  The Glossy Abelia has bloomed. It normally blooms in May, so the fact that it is blooming now has to mean the courtyard really doesn’t get enough light. The cherries stopped ripening halfway, and the blueberries bore not a single fruit. What the landscaper said back when we were making our list of trees was true: No fruit trees. It’s a north-facing garden. Still, at least the flowers bloom.

 

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