At last ... ire ti bori o!
Hey hey hey!
I posted on Kinimori for the first time on 28 January 2020, exactly one year ago.
I was full of optimism and excitement. I had so much to say! Nothing particularly eloquent, but genuine outpourings from my heart on the wonder of plants and all nature. Beautiful flowers! Delicious fresh fruit and vegetables! Colours, textures, smells!
The highs and lows of the growing experience. Rain, winds, frost, snow, sun, storms … you name it, it’s all good. The sense of achievement and joy you feel as trees mature and begin to hold their own.
I still have so much to say!
So, ‘Happy Anniversary!’ to us! But, alas, and whoopee! this is an anniversary - with a twist.
And what a twist!
Despicable criminal acts of malicious violence against my plants and my person have re-affirmed to me that growing is truly my passion and my calling, if there is such a thing. I LOVE growing plants of every kind. Even plants we may consider to be weeds - eh hem … within reason. I also enjoy writing about my plant life, and recognise that, as with growing, I have so much to learn. Bring it on!
For some years, I had been searching and dreaming against the odds – great odds – of finding acres of good land of my own on which to create a garden of my own au solitaire (mostly!), the way I want it, away from prying eyes and the evil machinations of those who chose to actuate their being as ‘mala gente’.
This winter, most of my mature trees and shrubs were killed and grotesquely staged by ‘mala gente’. For over a year now, they have acted in base, cowardly ways, operating under cover of night, indulging the excesses of their depraved desires. Desires that demand the killing of my trees and shrubs. And worse, believe me. Discrete one-off acts, larger repeat acts, and finally 90% of the mature trees left after an 18-month campaign.
Ojukokoro is a squalid and ugly thing…
In case you are wondering, ojukokoro means ‘covetousness’ in the Yoruba language. The trunk of my super-productive 10 year old Stella tree, cut 3/4-way at the base this winter, and left standing, I imagine to be discovered in spring 2021.
Talk about perverse …
Another case of ojukokoro …
But look! I see the broad tri-partite leaves of ‘stray’ strawberry plants around the cut base! There WILL be more strawberries for me (and the birds!), if not the delicious cherries this now dead tree once produced a-plenty.
My fears of growing in a communal setting, idyllic and ‘cum bah ya’ as it may seem from the outside (and often truly is), have come true. Growing at an allotment was a desperate last resort for me, but, true to my character, I know I made the most of it. Regardless of what life threw at me. When I set my mind to a mission, I sometimes succeed, and fail A LOT too, but never for want of trying. Never.
Against the backdrop of both acute and chronic trauma in my personal life, I can honestly look back and say, ‘GIRL, did I grow in 2020! or what?!! I really did.
And so did I in 2015, when I rediscovered my love of gardening. And in 2016 and 2017 were epic years! I didn’t do too badly in 2018 and 2019 either, considering.
The plant killing of December 2020 was extensive, and is possibly even continuing as I write this very night. I will find out soon enough. I take some (only a little!) comfort in the knowledge that while the plants may be dead to me, they’re of great use to nature. They’ve got work to do in the compost heap!
The human heart, my heart, is full of the potential for good and evil. Vengeance is hard to resist when justice appears (to me) to be asleep on the job, or worse, looking on or away impassively. Fortunately for those who chose to actuate their beings as ‘mala gente’ my natural inclination is to prefer to choose good, every time. Granted, we all have different interpretations of what ‘good’ is.
Thank goodness we have the laws of the land to guide us and enough basic human decency in society.
My sky turned immeasurably grey for a time when I discovered the latest extensive annihilation of my plants. There were are a lot of grey skies for all too may in 2020, and already in 2021, for that matter - all over the world. Skies a lot more grey than mine. Skies, thankfully, a little less so for others …
My grey skies of 2020 threatened - but only threatened (ha! HA!) – the fragile balance of my quite remarkable (though I say so myself) humanity.
Those grey skies reaffirmed to me that nothing can take away my pride in my ‘green’ achievements. So,
‘Show me what you got!’
And this is what I got! Looking out my bedroom window on the morning of 24 January 2021, I saw …
… the power of my sky, there to purify the golden opportunities of my life, if I will only see them, whether those skies are grey, or every colour and hue of a rainbow
Look at what I now know I’m working with: the invigorating power of a burnishing sky - ON FIRE!
Now, as I dream and plan my next chapter, I have thousands pictures and video clips to swoon over as I reminisce on times gone by. I have my blog, Kinimori, and a host of related ventures to pursue. I am more clear-eyed than ever about my purpose in life, and what my next steps are going to be. Simply put, GREEN.
It’s all good, and it’s all green. Healthy (if mottled), beautiful leaves of these wonderful winter roses that I picked on the day I discovered the carnage in December 2020.
My favourite rose bush gave me beautiful roses on that evil December 2020 day of discovery, just as it did in glorious May!
A biblical phrase comes to my mind,
‘Weeping may endure for the night, but JOY comes in the morning.’
My green dream will become my reality.
And when that time comes, I’ll have a lot of good work to do.
I’ll be dreaming, planning, measuring,
pouring over catalogues, buying, sowing
transplanting, pruning, and more
Oh, THE JOYS!
