The tea tree

The blog goes strangely silent while I work through yet another health problem.

So much has gone wrong with me since January that I have reached and passed the point that I just do not want to write about it any more. I can see myself turning into this person that other people take one look at and run in the opposite direction so they don't have to hear the latest medical problem. I used to know a woman like that -- you said "Hi, how are you" and she told you exactly how she was and how her children were, and...once I did cross the street and go into a store when I saw her at the other end of the block heading toward me so I would not have to talk to her and hear the latest. 

So when a person really is "not OK", the standard greeting that people give each other…

Hi. How are you?

...becomes a loaded question.

Do they really want to know how I am? Well, if they are close friends or family then yes, probably they do, but not the stranger that I passed on my walk in the park the other day who said  “How are you?” and I said “I’m great,” or even the casual acquaintance that I see at the post office or in the check-out line at the store.

So, “I am fine” is good enough for now. And in a very real sense I am “fine.”

In the meantime, with a perfectly straight face, he says, “Did you know our tea tree is blooming?”

Tea tree?

If we have a tea tree it is news to me. “Come on, he says, “I’ll show you.”

So I trail after him as he heads toward the compost heap.

 “Look,” he says, “the tree is just about ready to harvest.”

And then he bursts into laughter.

We drink a lot of green tea, and the used bags go into the compost bucket, which in turn is thrown on the compost heap. And there is a bush right next to the spot, and the inevitable happens.


A tea tree indeed.