The strange culture, the North African landscape and Mediterranean gardens are not what he expected.
In June 2000, Christopher Janus, an American landscape architecture student at a mid-western university, finds himself in Tangier on a term-abroad design study.
CJ, as his friends called him, could not wait to be home for Christmas.
To complete his Moroccan term-abroad design study, CJ writes about his strange culture, landscape and garden experiences in a series of 40 short stories.
Those short stories are now, for the first time, being released on Vella everyday between now and Christmas Eve.
A small courtyard garden, as we in the USA would say. A garden surrounded by the house–your home.
In CJ’s view, it is an excellent, safe and intimate space to get close to plants.
Traditionally it is a practical place for edible plants, medicinal plants, fragrant plants, beautiful plants–and it doesn’t require much water. What’s wrong with that?
Want to learn more about CJ’s discoveries in Tangier riads?
Everybody wants it; but can health, good health be seen?
I’m not talking about humans.
This is about plants. And it is not a discussion about the definition of beauty or the definition of good health.
It is rather about what our eyes can observe. See a beautiful plant. See a beautiful flower. We are accustomed to those.
But something happened to me the other day on a walk. Our local weather has been good: sunshine, warmth and deep gentle rains. Locally, one finds in many home gardens well maintained topsoil–mulched with animal manures and dug in every year.
What does that mean? Healthy plant growth. And even with very common plants, their health shines. It captured my attention recently. My photo shows that. I hope you can see it.
Unusual perceptions of plants and their flowers? That is what CJ experienced for the first time in my book, Tangier Gardens. If you like plants and their flowers you will like CJ’s story.
As it has for millennia…the fragrant rose…exudes a mellow sweetness that quietly and slowly penetrates the deepest corners of the heart and surreptitiously intoxicates…soothes all emotions.
…the fragrant rose…
Get close to a fragrant rose today. It is a free pleasure. Let that fragrance enter your being.
When CJ was in Morocco, it was not scent so much as the sights and sounds of the plants that entered his being and took him to places never talked about at university.
New fresh spring green blades of grass and then common primroses. We are past the beginning of spring into the warm Easter colors of spring.
Let me see–how many years have I been alive?
Has there ever been a year without a glorious spring?
Of course not.
Spring inspires me to write about that existential wonder we all share. Spring is medicine that soothes the political and media attempts to agitate us all.
I just go outside and take a walk.
The best of my spring inspirations has been my first book, Tangier Gardens.
In Tangier Gardens, I explore the curative effects that plants provide to ease human existential anxieties.
Every spring is a joy! So let’s cheer the warmer sunny days, fresh spring greens, dancing flowers, sweet scents–everyone of those entrancing joys.
Celebrate the first day of spring with an additional joyful special–a FREE OFFER.
For five days only around the first day of spring, I offer for FREE my debut eBook novel, Tangier Gardens. On the mesmerizing Mediterranean coast, the story revels in the discoveries of Med landscapes, gardens and plants.
aficionados of landscape architecture, the Med and Morocco.
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In this bildungsroman, Christopher Janus, his friends call him CJ, needs a break. He has been busting his hump full time six years at university with one more class till graduation.
CJ’s studying landscape architecture, into pedestrian towns and warm sandy beaches. For his last class, a term abroad design study, he’s on his way to Tangier, a town coincidently with sandy beaches on the Med and a historical pedestrian district, the medina.
In Tangier Gardens, the author draws upon his years of extensive experiences in the Middle East and North Africa to weave a fascinating tale of intrigue.
Just released, this fast moving novel is on a ‘Spring Joy Special’, the eBook is regularly $3.99 but to celebrate the coming of spring 19-23 March, I offer it for FREE.
Original 17th century Wenceslaus Hollar view of Tangier harbour post-processed by flahertylandscape.
CJ was coming of age and he was lost. He had wanted to get absorbed in a different culture. The labyrinth had captured him. In his despair he turned to his oldest friend, a girl with whom he had been growing for the past six years. And she became his strength. Though separated from CJ by thousands of miles, she lit his path to clarity.
Tangier Gardens. Launching March 2022. Notification of details and discounts here.
