Taming Parkinson's Disease

I had carefully planned our garden, deciding to buy only hardy plants requiring little water and maintenance. Wanting to create a calm soft colour scheme of pinks, lilacs, mauve and white - I had a vision in my mind of tranquillity, an enchanted English rambling garden, which I would enjoy, and be a special place reflecting what I love most.

Trying to tame Parkinson's is much like taming my garden, for it's impossible as both took on a life force of their own. The garden has indeed flourished, greenery and flowers exploding out of the rich soil resembling an English garden, a little quirky, it has a touch of enchantment as I'd envisaged. However, the colour scheme I had thought long and hard about has gone out of the window. Every colour flower possible is bursting forth with iridescent colours that are almost florescent. I tried taming the colour scheme by removing the dazzling red geraniums that are so bright, their luminous splash of colour are like neon lights. 

I thought I had removed those robust bright red geraniums, but they returned with full force as if to say, "you can't get rid of us that quickly - we're here to stay!" Yellow and orange flowers that I did not plant, have magically popped up everywhere, creating a kaleidoscope of colours. So just as I have resigned myself to living with Parkinson's, I have grudgingly agreed to a multi coloured garden. Some things are just not within our power to change and taming my garden is as fruitless as trying to tame Parkinson's!

April is Parkinson's Awareness Month, and in Holland, the fields of tulips like roaming carpets of colour that come into bloom around this time of year seem to stretch as far as the eye can see. Very appropriately the red tulip is the international symbol for Parkinson's. The picture here is of a particular strain of red tulip with delicate white tips that was named especially after Dr. James Parkinson.