I once tried to make some place 「secret」.
In the corner of the yard stood a cherry tree. I, pretty young then, had hardly noticed the existence of that lonely trunk sticking with twisty branches in winters. But when spring came around, soft breeze started to blow up its beauty. Occasionally, came cherry tree, the rise, I saw it like a snow, flourish, dedicate fragrance of cherry blossoms to wake up in the flowering. Here under the pink mist of sakura, I heard the tree murmur to my ears:」 Just look up to the sky, look up, look up……」 As I did, misty blossoms tipped with glimmering blue sky came to my sight. It was incredible as if I had been in the chapters of Kawabata Yasunari. 「thank you,」 I whispered as a reply, hoping selfishly that this magnificent scene could only be captured by my eyes.
「let’s make it a secret, shall we?」 I asked the tree. Here in the corner of our back yard, the cherry tree became a secret land.
Thus, the cherry tree witnessed all my sorrows, tears, happiness and fears. I poured out my heart under that pink cloud, believing in nobody else should have heard. Secret land, a place where a little girl once possessed a piece of beauty and treasured her little heart.
One month later, the tree was cut down in my uncontrollable yells. Mrs Dabney, our indifferent neighbor, complained that the tree had taken up too much of her parking place. My dad could not help but to carry an old saw to the yard and started the cutting business. The moment my cherry tree hit the ground, my heart was torn up as if all my secret was forced to be exposed to people—it was just like confronting the public all naked.
That corner a cherry tree once stood, was no secret. It held a little girl’s secrets yet anyone could see them—only a few words of complaint are needed.
Some place on earth should be a secret belonged to me! I cried. Years after, I gave another shot to build a secret land.
I discovered my love for books.
「I hope that the so-called paradise is a library.」, said Jorge Luis Borges. With two huge bookshelves towering in the study, I felt a need to make here a 「paradise」. I placed some exquisite ornaments: fresh roses in the Venice glass vase, antique parchments with round hands, vivid figurines of Renaissance style……
（這是作者家的書櫃）
I liked curling up in the arm chair in a warm afternoon, book in hand, to hide myself in the heaven from the outside world. A drop of sunshine dipped in the room, conjecting a shadow of rainbow on the floor. I closed my eyes and thought, nowhere could be a better secret land.
The thing is, however, everyone who visited my house became curious of that 「closed—forever door.」 I resented to exhibit my tiny study whose door had hardly opened, but curiosity of my welcomed guests finally broke in there. 「Ahhh, what a wonderful place! Folks shouldn’t have missed here! You’re just like some sort of a Medieval poet!」 visitors exclaimed, reaching for cell phones in handbags, and took pictures. Didn’t know why, I chose not to stop them. My drops of sunshine, bridges of rainbow, and mountains of books—again, became naked.
I should have prevented them from invasion. But I couldn’t. The thing is, nowhere in the physical world should be secret, and by no means can we stop human’s desire from being realized. Meditating, I found out that the history of human was rolled out by only one theme: to discover the unknown. Science and technology have reached a point where every corner of the world can be in sight of us, ranging from fathoms deep in the ocean to thousands of feet outside the universe.
Admittedly, secret land has no possession of anywhere on earth.
But it’s the god of heart.
As I have realized, me myself is the safest, strongest shelter. People can cut down my tree, invade in my room, skim my diary, but things in my mind can never be visible. For years, I』ve been searching for something secret, not for hiding away from the madding crowd but for finding a place where I can listen to my own voice, stare into myself without being disturbed. That’s it, ego cogito, ego sum.
For sure, people may all be searching for a secret place. Living together with seeming masses, their characteristics soon start to be sunk in the crowd, fading.Thus,they become eager for finding somewhere to find themselves back to prove their existence. Folks, should I say, just hide into your own heart.
Spring comes around, a breeze sends me a pink petal.
It’s a secret one. Only my heart can discover its unique exquisiteness.
（部分圖片源自網絡）