Mother's Day at the New York Botanical Gardens

So here is the odd thing about this year's Mother's Day. I didn't spend it in the city , even though or perhaps because I live here now. When I lived in the suburbs, Mother's Day was the one day per year that it was absolutely guaranteed that I would spend the day in the city. Since it was my day, and I got to choose what we were going to do, no child or spouse was allowed to whine and complain about how he or she didn't want to go to the museum, or go to a play or go for brunch in the city. All other weekends Sunday could be up for debate (too much to do in the house, kids want to go to the playground, kids have too much homework (later), kids have plans with their friends and need a ride(even later), kids want to drive to rock band practice (much later)). But not on Mother's Day.

So, imagine my surprise at the fact that I spent Mother's Day this year at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx (www.nybg.org) and actually enjoyed it. When my children were small we would go to the Botanical Gardens several times per year, usually at the urging of my husband who needs long walks the way I need to see at least some buildings over ten stories to feel fully alive. My reaction was usually the same: this is nice but aren't we surrounded by enough nature in Westchester? Also, the kids were mainly interested in running through the shrubbery maze that now resides in the Everett Children's garden, and they had to be forcibly removed after twenty minutes of making themselves dizzy.

But the Botanical Gardens happen to be a very special place, and the current exhibit of "Emily Dickinson's Garden:The Poetry of Flowers" (through June 13)is a unique and spectacular recreation of flowers that Dickinson both cultivated in nature and in her poetry. The colors alone could rival any retrospective of the Fauves at the Modern Museum of Art. And now that my daughter has grown up sized legs,the distances don't seem quite so large to get back to the parking lot.

I had no regrets, however, returning to a sushi dinner in Manhattan save for one: that we had no reason to visit the maze in the children's garden.