I can't sleep…
I was trying in this dream to compose a sentence that would encapsulate the existence of this plant: its flowers were an explosive red, it grew with vigour, its branches sprang out from its stem in a satisfying, meaningful shape. The fact that it grew on the very rim of nothingness was of no concern to it. It grew, it was firmly rooted, it blossomed, it was.
— Helen Garner, One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995.
Notes:
Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
My desert cactus has five spindly branches spread untidily in the pot. Each time I water that cactus I wonder why. I see no progress in how it looks; I water it all the same along with the other potted plants around it. It maintains a nonchalant brownish, greenish, and trace of yellow that appears anemic, as if on the verge of turning brown all over and withering up, if not for my regular water. Once afternoon, I pass it and what catches my eye makes me stop in my tracks and look again at the source of that stimulus. There on the end of one of the five tentacles of the cactus is an enormous flower, yellow with dozens of bristling stamens, and layers inside like a catacomb in miniature. I take photos with my phone, I call everyone from the house to come and see the miracle of a flower where I thought no such thing could occur. Thank goodness I kept watering that cactus after I dismissed it as ugly and unproductive or at least unresponsive to my care of it. The cactus flower proves me wrong. Nothing else in the garden comes near that flower’s majesty. By evening it shrivels and lies limp on the end of the thin branch of cactus. Next morning I give it an extra drink and apologize to it, and encourage my dear, ugly, surprising cactus to keep on doing whatever it does and to ignore me.
— Fred D’Aguiar, Year of Plagues: A Memoir of 2020 (Harper, August 3, 2021)
Photo: Mike Grant, Desert Bloom, Phoenix, AZ
4:20 a.m. 61° F. Wind gusting. Dark Sky signals cloud cover @ 100%. Rain in an hour.
I walk.
Cove Island Park. 424 consecutive mornings. Like in a row.
Why so groggy?
Mind scans the pre-bed time routine.
There was a time. No flu shots. No aspirin. No cold medication. No allergy medicine. No Anything. A diesel engine that would just keep running. Middle age Plus = Wheels coming off this bus.
I walk. Limping. Left, lower back in a bad place. Internal parts, bones, blood, arteries, nerve endings, all sloshing in a sugar bath.
Nope. I don’t want scolding, coaching or gentle persuasion from you Sugar-Free Vegan’s out there. No. Don’t want to hear it. This isn’t a Cocaine problem, or an Oxycontin problem (yet).
I walk. Back is loosening up. Continue reading “Walking. And Self Medicating.”
One of my favourite things about in person conversation…..watching someone become more and more comfortable making eye contact with you. You’re watching a soul unfold, like a flower.
Photo: “Cleome” on Morning Walk. 6:10 am. July 16, 2020. Hollow Tree Ridge Road, CT
Saboyemichele: with “Our Lily” and “Arum Lily”. “The images above appeared in Lilliput Pocket Omnibus 1937/38 which was a humorous publication produced by Stefan Lorant, a photojournalist, author, and filmmaker. The magazine was known for Lorant’s juxtapositions of images for political or aesthetic effects. The left photo of the dancer was taken by Dr. Krohn from Praha (Prague). The photo on the right was taken by Felix Man. The synergy between these two pictures is visually stunning!”
In search of DK’s Lily:
