Care
This last month, I did myself a long overdue favour and gifted flowers. To me: from me. I love flowers, though it might as well be a closely guarded secret, judging from their lack in my life. Sure, I have a few hardy bougainvillea and hibiscus in the balcony garden, even a rose and aredenium or two. But the balcony gets deep shade most of the year and anyway, my madcap experiments with fruit seeds and attempts to grow vegetables usually crowd out any flowering plants. I regularly and ruthlessly evict the more delicate or whingeing plants to find room in the limited space for the next hopeful crop of baingan or lychee.
The plants on my balcony saved my sanity in these last few years. Digging my fingers into the good rich earth most mornings, watching the plants grow, bloom and sometimes die, the complex ecosystem they nurture: the bees and the sunbirds, the earthworms and caterpillars, the occasional ladybird and the always welcome bees – these have been my therapy and healing, my joy and hope.
And still, for all that my balcony means to me, I do love flowers – the ones left to grow old on the plant but also the gorgeous bunches of cut, long stemmed beauties that one buys in fair exchange of a limb or two in the city. It’s not a habit I’ve indulged in often. The friendly neighbourhood florists don’t particularly like me. I don’t easily buy their Bhabhi, yeh toh ekdum fresh toh fresh hai spiel. I sigh and my face says Go tell it to some other trusting soul. Their smiles turn upside down and the prices go in the other direction. No sale. This woman gets mud under her fingernails every morning. I know what fresh looks like. Most times, I abandon the gorgeous blooms and clump home to my beautifully leafy balcony.
Also, until recently, the spouse had pollen allergies. So he remained cunningly oblivious to heavy handed hints about flowers. A friend once joked he’d rather gift me diamonds. Close. But the allergies have subsided with time and there is no longer the spectre of a wet, miserable spousal nose to hold me back anymore.
A bunch of flowers arrive at my door every week. The joy that these flowers bring is very different from the solace of my own plants. The flowers, nurtured by some other gardener, are brought to my door simply to add colour and fragrance and beauty to my day. They have a different meaning – here is life, at its pinnacle, here is life, bursting into bloom. All it needs is a little bit of care in return.
I don’t know what flowers to expect, it’s a surprise. There are always some wild flowers and grasses, so that I can indulge in that old fantasy: walking through a field of wildflowers and picking a few for my kitchen table. Very chickflick, this fantasy. It is the one redeeming feature in an otherwise never ending collection of nightmares. These flowers that arrive in a cardboard box are a nice mix of wild and hothouse – they don’t all bloom at once and require a bit of tending to keep them fresh all week long.
Which finally brings me to the point of this essay. What a pinch of sugar and some care can do. In this case, it prolongs the happiness that flowers bring to dark corners of the house. When the flowers arrive, a little satchet of what looks like ascorbic acid and glucose accompanies them. It goes into the vase with the water. The flowers seem to enjoy the little boost of electrolytes as much as I do. Every couple of days, I am instructed to trim off two inches of stalk, wash them clean of slime, remove any leaves that might touch the water and replenish the vase with a squeeze of lime, some sugar and clean water. Nimboo paani for flowers. I wonder aloud if a margarita might pep them up some more but the spouse draws the line here – the tequila can be put to better use, he declares firmly.
At first, too excited at the sight of this largesse, I’d cram the entire bunch into the tallest vase I could find. A riot of colour and fragrance but it was an overcrowded house. The more fragile wild blooms were bullied to an early death by the more vigorous hybrids, buds gave up the struggle to blossom, the grasses wilted. Lesson learned. Two smaller vases were brought out of retirement and every couple of days, I switch the flowers around between the three homes – sometimes the carnations tolerate the orchids but then show signs of irritation. Switching out the orchids for the tuberoses or gladioli et voila! the carnations perk up again.
Sometimes the stalks give up under the weight of the blossoms. I’ve learnt not to throw the flowers away in disappointment. Instead, I snip off the wilted stalk and float the flowers in a tea cup. The flowers hang on for another day. Who says happiness can’t be extended on a daily basis?
The care is minimal but necessary to prolong the beauty. My balcony plants have long ago given up hope of any tender ministrations from their human. They grimly hang on: through erratic watering, too much digging or none at all, salt water baths in the monsoon. Not so these new and fragile guests every week. Skip a day of refreshing the water and they sulk, droop and generally throw a little tantrum. Some days, they even keel over and die.
The difference between the lush greenery on my balcony and the bright colours of the cut flowers is a lot like the contrast in my relationships. There are those people who need constant tending. The ones who doggedly refuse to give up. The dying, the beautiful. Each takes and gives in different ways. Sometimes, the most precious and fragile people in my life feel like too much work. It is tempting to give up on them and instead lean on the tough ones, the ones that smile through all the troubles. But my life is richer because of those difficult relationships, even though they seem to leach away all the energy I have to spare. In the end, the little joys they bring to my life are worth all the heartache and angst.
To those of my people who alternate between ghosting and sulking, but whose presence in my life is non-negotiable, I can spare the care you need constantly, like my weekly bunch of flowers. You want, you need, you demand. And I give. Because when life and moods are going well, that little care brings a different beauty to the dark corners of my world.
To those of my people who give so generously of their time and attention, you are my balcony plants. My year-round support, my solace. You are the ones I rest my eyes on, to keep me sane..and like the plants on the balcony, you are fierce when it comes to holding on. I cherish you but you don’t want or need nurturing. You only say, pay it forward.
When it isn’t possible to repay the love and support, pay it forward. The funny thing is, in the taking and the giving, the love stays constant. It only needs a little care and attention.