(A fresh perspective on midlife crisis)
We all have our rooted passions, and these are not the ones that come and go...I am speaking about the ones that probably sprouted in you while you were being manufactured in the mother's womb. For instance, I loved words for as long as I can remember. And trust me, I remember like an elephant. (And no, there is no subtle form reference here, though on second thoughts, it might look like there is) Any new, novel, alien sound that traveled to my eardrum made it to a permanent camping space in my mind. The next obviously logical thing was to put them to use and thus my yearning to write was born. I glorified words all my life. Made them my center stage. I flattered myself while playing with them with narcissistic aplomb, never getting enough of my own expression and then tricking myself into believing that I am here to change the face of articulation and create master pieces. Life happened then and things were put in perspective. Now I look at my works as mediocre at their best and barf inducing at their worst and I mean it with all my sincerity. Not an ounce of false modesty, I swear (And I do not swear (figuratively or literally ;-)) often) Grin.
And this isn't the point anyway, of this ponder of mine. So I'll not digress and get to the point. The other day, I was looking through the window of my nook to spot what looked like Godzilla's shoe boxes constructed in redwood, cramped into our modest Northern California backyard, if you know how that looks. For a moment I thought It was my rampant imagination, but to get a grip on what I just saw, I walked out to be greeted by Aurturo, our ever smiling gentleman of a gardener armed with his power drill, putting together another plank over the Godzilla shoe box - and yes there were more than one of the shoe boxes, to a point where the front yard had one too, to the side and my respite in CA suburbs, those ravishing Hydrangeas were re-potted into cumbersome, industrial grade planters and appointed around the Almond tree in the front. So you know, aesthetics don't amount to much when some passions are raging. At this point I didn't know what to react to or what visuals to process. The strip of our green grass, that was the nature lover's other respite in the cramped CA suburb, quiet literally bit the dust while piles of what smelled like a chicken coop married to horse stable smelling dirt was slathered on it.
Voila - and I meet our new vegetable beds. I thanked my lucky stars that my reactions are often slow and controlled or I'd have probably wailed and passed out in the combined effect of the visual horror and the accompanying aromatherapy effects of the compost rich potting soil. All these years of knowing and accurately mapping the man of the house, I resisted the urge to call him and demand answers for destroying the last trace of our carpet grass in the side yard. Instead, I tried to condition my mind into reminding myself how this guy loves plants probably a tad bit more than or as much as he loves me. A part of me didn't want to confront him and ask him to pick between the vegetable beds or the spouse perhaps out of the fear of rejection. LOL..that was a joke. But you get the drift. I never asked him what qualities in me impressed him, but some of the many endearing qualities of this man are his love for plants and animals. He had this perfectly tended-to collection of succulents when we first met, doing their exotic display to entice some people to a point of no return. And that's how I got on to this road of no return and while treading on it, I try not to scream when I feel like it , reminding myself that what writing is to me is what gardening is to him. The only primary difference being that this man despises food with a vengeance. Of course don't count ice cream as food and no, the self proclaimed epicure is yet to explore the territory of home made ice cream.
So I made peace with the fact that his midlife crisis is unfolding as an eyesore in the backyard and was secretly thankful of my own invisible counterpart that unfolded in some secure corners of my brains - this love for juvenile fiction. John Green to be specific. Ahem, we'll leave it at that. I promise I won't divulge more of that love or it might put the backyard stink to shame ;-)
So I now resign to my limitations and wait for the late garden to sprout, bud and bloom so that those artichokes, asparagus, cocktail mint, lemon verbena and gourmet baby beets make their appearance in my gastronomic adventures that would be devoured by none. I say none because my plane Jane palate never went beyond the basic south Indian vegetarian fare and I doubt if the man has a palate to begin with. But it is what it is. Passion is passion. There is no ambition attached to it. There is no counting investments and estimating the lucrative benefit alongside passion. That would be blasphemy to look for benefits out of our callings. Elon Musk started Space X to go to Mars. He cared less about getting famous or rich. That is 'Yearning' for starters and we have that in abundance in this household. It flows in balderdash on a virtual space dubbed Blah Blah or it makes a literal manifestation in larger than life proportions in a non existing backyard. It is how life is supposed to be. You'll never get it. Or get it right. We write, we plant, we read, we reap, we stumble, we fall, we pull ourselves up ...and we repeat. And with yearning as a companion, we enjoy every bit of it.
And I apologize to Mr. Musk for obvious reasons ;-)
Pic courtesy - Dhiren Shan ( to represent my own imagination of how the man of the house imagines his humble garden;-))
