Having married and gone to live in the coffee plantation I was
an eager beaver, wanted to learn everything about coffee, from brewing a perfect
cup to growing the perfect beans (none I can claim glory or adequacy over!!!)
So my lessons begin, coffee is largely two varieties, Arabica
and Robusta which have diverse sub species, the former a dainty plant with
narrow trunk and narrow leaves and the latter true to its name, a robust and
sturdy plant with coffee growing in clumps making it a pretty sight.
One of the first tasks we did as a young couple was prepare the
nursery, not for our offspring but for the plants that we needed to grow as we
were replanting the estate. The best looking coffee beans of the previous year’s
yield would be encrusted with ash and preserved as we would fill soil into little
plastic pouches, use a twig to poke an indentation and drop the seed in gently.
Great prudence was exercised in the care of the plants and the
health of the sapling was vital. In about a year or fourteen months’ time,
depending on its sinew, the plant would be transferred into the real world,
i.e. into cavities dug in the earth within the plantation and it would embark
on its journey of being a ‘great’ contributor to the harvest.
The plants from the previous years which hadn’t begun
yielding yet would be pruned and I was taught which branches were rogue and
which defined promise and the top of the plant as it grew used to be shorn off!
And I used to be pissed.
My argument was, why circumcise the plant every year till it
frikkin bloomed (maybe something that can be tried on the human genus?) Ok! I get
the parasitic branches bit but the beheading was a bit much.
So I would argue with whoever I found on the ‘bonsai’ zation
of the coffee plant and oh the cruelty of it all! If the Good Lord had wanted
to make dwarf plants he would, what right did we have to mutilate His creation
to suit our avarice??!!?
Oh yeah, it was an exercise in futility and after a few
drinks I would forget whether I was for it or against.
Karma is NOT my friend, the turnaround time is too volatile.
Like w**king into the pot and as you shake off the last drop, the stork
delivers to your doorstep a parcel wrapped in pink/blue. Seriously!
The rebel in me recognized that some pruning and paring is a
necessary evil even for our own growth and development as I became a parent.
(if you can wipe that grin off your face, Mother?)
It’s been a while since the pruning shears have come a
calling. For me.
But not today, the bubble I floated on, you know this I’m too
sexy for my boots, too sexy for my sh*t, too sexy for my @#$% ditty that plays
on loop in your head, that one. Now that one was ripped out. Sigh!
One of the worse quirks of my personality is that I am a
ruminator and I have an enviable memory. So when I meditated on the ‘Oh you’re
45 and yet what do you have?’ I’ve been Sinatra ing on feelings varying from
defeat, defiance, fear, sorrow, failure and then again to who is to judge what I
have and have not achieved and by what standards.
So, this roller coaster has
been spinning furiously.
What helps balance is the fact that I need these reminders,
to keep me humble, to aim higher, to prune my branches and clip my wings,
perhaps grow more feathers for a longer flight? I need to bugger off from this
wagon of self-pity I’ve been traipsing around. Snipping that ego is imperative for the soul.
And oh yes, to walk down memory lane and connect it to my outrage at what I thought was the cruelty of coffee bonsai.
To be trimmed like a new born…sigh!
