Behind The Gate – A Simple, Magical Story

Have you ever experienced a moment in time where it feels like you have somehow entered another plane of existence? You’re still on earth, you have no doubt, but somehow it just feels different, otherworldly. Maybe the edges of reality seem softer or the colours sharper and brighter and in that moment, in that experience, you feel like what you are witnessing has a element of magic to it.

Let me explain further with a story of an experience my husband and I had many years ago. I use this example, not because I haven’t had any other moments of magic since, but because this story took place around this time of the year and for some reason has popped back into my head and keeps playing in my mind’s eye. For what reason? I have no clue.

I live on Vancouver island on the west coast of Canada and situated just out in the harbour of the city I live in, and a 10 minute boat ride away, is a smaller island that shields the inner waters from stronger winds and weather and is aptly named, Protection island.

Protection island has a small but closely knit community living on it and for those who have never experienced small island life on the west coast of Canada, the lifestyle is very laid back and is almost always populated with an eclectic assortment of folks ranging from old hippies and their cobbled together abodes to rich, successful types with beautifully appointed, holiday homes. Protection island is no different.

My husband and I were invited to a mortgage burning party on said island by some old friends of ours. No actual mortgages were burned in the celebration, but the significant milestone of paying off, what most people consider their biggest expense in life, was honoured with good food and much imbibement.

After a few hours of merriment and in need of a little quiet, my hubby and I decided to sneak away from the party and take a little walk. Protection island has no paved roads and is small enough that it can be leisurely walked around within a hour. There are no cars so the residents of the island use golf carts or their feet to navigate the island.

As we reached the east side of the island, hubby and I came upon a rather tall stretch of cedar hedge with a beautiful wood and iron gate nestled into a cutout within the dense greenery. I will mention at this point that the folks on Protection island pride themselves on their property’s gateways with some even bordering towards art installations, so it’s a visual pleasure to stroll the island’s dirt roads.

We stopped in front of the gate and commented with curiosity on what might be hiding behind this large cedar hedge and sturdy iron and wood gate as there was no visual clue as to what might dwell behind it. Slowly the gate began to open as if we had somehow uttered the right, “open sesame” words needed to unlock it’s secrets and an unassuming, elderly gentleman peaked his head around the edge of the magical portal and asked, “Would you like to see inside?”

Right then and there the air felt different and hubby and I both knew that when we stepped through that gate, we would be in for a visual treat.

Protection island was developed in the late 60’s and early 70’s by a local realtor and his agency who would go on to become our most famous mayor. Frank Ney or as he was known by the locals, Black Frank, named for his flare of theatrics and penchants for donning a pirate suit for community events and yelling, “6 bells and all is well in Davey Jone’s Locker!” subdivided the island into building lots and no doubt made the equivalent of a pirate’s treasure in profit.

I tell you this piece of trivia only because the house that stood before us as we passed through the mysterious gate was much older and not in character to the west coast styled island homes nestled all around it. No, this house was a classic built somewhere in the late 40’s or 50’s. A beautiful, two story home with grey stucco and bay windows and white painted window sashes. A peak into the lower level windows revealed a small but separate dining room, a vintage kitchen and a stately living room with what appeared to be bedrooms above that were high enough to spy the ocean out their white curtained windows. She was a solid old madam, standing stoically amongst her modern upstart neighbours.

But as wonderful as the house was, it was the gardens that surrounded her that took our breath away. Not an inch of land was left ungroomed. The backyard, where the gate opened up too, was ordered with beautiful raised beds of vegetables at various stages of ripening. Each were bordered with graveled pathways for ease of tending. Our host was most pleased to answer questions regarding the varieties that grew in his plots.

He then guided us down the side of the house along a cement walkway that separated the house and several mature fruit trees laden with apples, pears and plums all dressed with lilies, hydrangea’s and other flowering shrubs and stalks at their feet. A mass of colour and fruit bounty. The colours were lush and the greenery a little wild but somehow it all appeared tamed within it’s side yard allotment.

Around the front of the old dame were more cement paths that curved around a cemented, in ground pond which the old man explained with great pride was actually a saltwater tidal pond; filling up at high tide and draining as the ocean receded to low tide. More shrubs and flowering bushes trimmed the edges and the path continued to the edge of the beach with views of the Strait of Georgia and the mainland beyond.

In total awe we toured this hidden garden of Eden for over a half an hour, letting the old man guide us along as he kindly answered all our questions and beamed with satisfaction and delight for what had to be a lifetime of love, care and hard work. When we arrived back at the gate, thanks didn’t seem like enough gratitude for the experience we had just been gifted but we did our best to express our appreciation as he closed the gate to his magical garden and severed the spell both my husband and I felt we most assuredly had to have been under.

When we arrived back at the party, and with the excitement still radiating from us, we had to gush to our host about the adventure we had just been on, but also hoping to learn more about this mysterious old gentleman and his magical private garden. The locals who had gathered around us to hear our story just stood there slack jawed in disbelief. “He let you in his garden!” they all said incredulously. “He never let’s anyone in!” Then they explained to us that his wife had been sick for a very long time and the two of them had became very reclusive. When his wife finally died, the man was rarely ever seen in public and almost never talked to anyone anymore. It was then that my husband and I realized the amazing, magical experience we had been granted by this lovely, and probably lonely old gentleman.

I don’t remember his name, if I was ever told it to begin with, but I can still see him in my mind’s eye as he radiated pride for the little piece of paradise he had created and tended to for years and years. And I will always remember the way I felt as I strolled his curved pathways, my senses overwhelmed by colours and scents and the shear beauty of not only the manicured flower and vegetable beds but the wild dance between the gnarled limbs of the mature fruit trees and the waving stems of blooming lilies and other hardy perennials as they waltzed with the ocean breeze.

They say that you can never go home again, that all things must change and nothing can stay the same forever. I will also add that real magic can never be repeated. The forces that brought these serendipitous events together will never happen again. That’s part of what makes them magical in the first place.

My husband and I returned to Protection Island a few years later to find a sad ending to this enchanted property. As we approached, my heart broke as I realized the the whole cedar hedge had been cut down and pulled out. Gone was the mystical portal of wood and iron and all I could see was over grown garden beds, children’s bikes and piles of garbage and debris in the corners and edges of the yard. A rather angry and ferocious looking dog was chained to one of the fruit trees barking his displeasure at us for threatening is territory and the grand old dame of a house stood worn and tired amongst the weeds and over grown bush.

The old man had died and his estate had been put up for rent. The garden sorcerer was no more and no magic remained. But the memory of his special gift to my husband and I will forever remain in our hearts. Was it just a random encounter? Did we just happen to be passing and the elderly gentleman, hearing our comments and feeling a little in need of human contact, create a serendipitous opportunity, or did we hit upon a magical wrinkle between two separate planes of existence – ours, and an alternate reality where a congenial, friendly and generous version of this elderly gentleman existed instead of the very private reclusive version that the locals knew to exist.

All I can say is that once my husband and I walked through that wood and iron gate nestled into a cutout, in a very tall and dense cedar hedge, that ran along a dirt road, on a small residential island, on the west coast of Canada, we experienced a simple kind of magic. The kind that sparks your soul to life and leaves you just a little bit in awe and wonder. The kind of magic that you never forget.

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I’d like to share with you another kind of magic. The kind that’s created between a witch and her cat. I’m pleased to share my latest handmade writing journal – the Witch’s Familiar – for sale now in my Etsy Store – https://dianafrajman.etsy.com

*This journal is now sold and on it’s way to it’s forever home.*