on the path

In the quiet of the morning, before the gates open, the Botanical Gardens feel like a secret kept just for a few of us. I slip in for an hour walk, wandering to corners I rarely see. This morning, it was the forest paths, the places that make you forget for a moment that you are still in the city. It is all deeply still, the kind of quiet that lets you hear your own steps and the rustle of leaves before anything else begins.

The Rock Garden is one of my favorites. There, delicate flowers push through gravel and dry soil, finding ways to reach the light in spite of what surrounds them. It always stops me. The hardness of the stone beside the softness of the blooms feels like a lesson, though I can’t always name it. It reminds me of the signs tucked all around the garden: please stay on the path. They’re meant to protect the fragile plantings, but I read them like reminders: gentle instructions about patience, about letting things grow in their own time.

Mostly, I walk alone listening to old gospel music and tara brach meditations. Sometimes I exchange good mornings with ann older Korean couple who move with the rhythm of a couple who have walked together for years. Besides us, the ground are waking up as well with the gardeners and groundskeepers quietly tending, preparing the space for the day ahead. There’s something beautiful in people rising early to care for the earth, for something that will be enjoyed by others later.

These walks are my restoration, a reminder that life is seasonal, that everything blooms and fades. In the gardens, I remember to notice myself too, to give time and care to what’s growing quietly within me. Please stay on the path- it is a warning, but also an invitation. To walk slowly. To notice. To trust that we are making our way to the light.

-L