The Garden of Happiness wasn’t really a garden at all. It was a concrete oasis walled off by hedges concealing it’s existence from the hoards of Yuppie shoppers on their way to purchase a new day-glow Izod polo shirt, at the wannabe upscale suburban mecca known as Bellevue Square. We, the teenage hooligans that haunted the mall, had dubbed it that one day after we had stumbled upon it. And after yet another run in with the workers at Cafe Nordstroms (who had gotten sick of us hanging out and sipping 25 cent coffee for hours on end) it seemed like heaven itself. We could be as loud and obnoxious as we wanted to be, and nobody seemed to care. Heck, nobody even really knew the place existed.
But after about of month of going to the Garden and getting crazy, laughing at Jeremy making a throne out of a steele garbage bin, watching Rob throw flowers at everyone while screaming, “This is the garden of happiness, dang it, be happy, or be gone…” the magic and charm of the place seemed to have worn off. Maybe it was the lack of access to 10 cups of that quarter coffee or the fact that summer had given way to the autumn chill…but suddenly we all sensed that the heyday of the Garden of Happiness was over. And so we decided to head back down there to bid it farewell. Rob grabbed what was left of the blooming flowers and threw the petals over the concrete to spread out the last drops of happiness before us like a carpet. Jeremy kissed his steel throne of refuse goodbye, and we all mourned the loss of the one place where sadness was not allowed to enter. And then we moved on…to the new park across the street, the U-District and in time to distance cities, countries and world’s far removed from the Garden of Happiness.
But it still exists, as a distant memory in the back of my mind. Remembered more for the lesson in moving on, and the cycles of life then for the actual happiness it brought for a few short weeks in one brief summer. And so it goes.