Death Revival
Today looks like it’s going to be all about Lazarus-like feats centered around reviving death in all sorts of ways.
First there’s the Death Machine; the name I give to my recumbent bike because riding it always feels like it could be fatal with each ride. It needs a tune, new chain and brakes to get back to fighting fitness. Hopefully, this won’t lead to a chain-reaction effect requiring increasingly more parts and labor, as is often the case.
That segues into dealing with another form of death: that of my career. I can’t find a job and it seems like my working life might be over. I understand I need humility to take a realistic approach to seeking work, but pride is getting in the way and I’m getting humiliation instead. I guess I’ll change when the pain gets too much…if I’m lucky. I’m expecting a pretty lonely and silent week ahead. I don’t see a way out and I need help, but experience has taught me that the only way to do that is to find it within myself. I need a physical revival today, having over-exerted myself in the sapping humidity yesterday to help set up the estate’s Tanabata festival.
Ironically considering how much death is playing a part in my life now, bringing some of the most intense joy into my life at the moment is our garden thriving with life. So much is happening!
Kangaroo paw, within the garden and among friends, is growing spectacularly for the most part, either while in flower or otherwise.
A manuka tree is full of flowers and looks lovely.
Its close relative, the tea tree, has also blossomed, though in a more subtle manner.
And the grevillea is simply spectacular. Our main tree continues to bloom with dozens of amazing flowers. The two grevillea trees that haven’t flowered are doing well, nonetheless, with the older tree sprouting lots of foliage. The Stick, which is truly an example of revival from death having received its name because a few years ago it was literally nothing more than a stick out of the ground (with roots, as it turned out), has grown so well it is now the tallest of our grevillea, topping the 2-meter-mark. Hopefully, flowers will come from the remaining grevillea one day.
Another seed success story, the hardenbergia, or happy wanderer, is doing remarkably well in the four locations I’ve planted it, and perhaps none more pleasingly so than on the arch covering the tree fern. One of the plants has creeped up the arch and, in combination with the branches of the golden wattle, is providing some much-needed shade to the dicksonia antartica, which struggled a bit in the blistering heat of summer last year and appears likely to face the same from now on with the temperature forecast to hit 40 degrees today.
Another little success story is the southern cross, which my plant identification app tells me is actually a crowea exalta, is sprouting some pretty little purple flowers (and probably would have done even better had I pruned it over the winter like its care card recommends).
And if I ever need a reminder of the vibrancy of life, I don’t have to look too far with my almost constant companion, the dinosaur, always chirpy and frisky, causing an enormous amount of frustration, but too adorable to get mad at!
