I missed palm trees. I missed Bali. It was two and a half years since I had seen a palm tree grow in the wild (I will not count the beautiful gardens in Italy in 2019). I thought of Zanzibar’s picture postcard white beaches with palm trees swaying in the wind. And I looked outside, at the leafless, gray trees in my Copenhagen backyard, being stretched out by the cold wind gusts.
And so, that January night, under another COVID lockdown, I found a local garden center and ordered the biggest Kentia palm they had. To my surprise, it arrived already the following day, along with a self-watering container for the thirsty beast that it was.
What a beautiful beast it is, well taller than me. And now I can happily lie under a palm tree and make post-COVID travel plans. The list is becoming quite long already.
(Copenhagen, Denmark; January 2021)
(Copenhagen, Denmark; April 2020)
Some plants become lifelong friends. Like the weeping fig I grew from a cutting from my mother’s tree when I was 17, wrapped around a rock, and grew into a bonsai tree. It has moved to Holland and back with me, and it made it to Denmark a year after I did. It looks a bit funky today as its apex is missing: half of the tree died when I spent a year in the UK. A big love was shattered during that year, too. Both it and I survived, but we are not the same anymore. The photo was taken a year after our crash-and-burn. I was doing about the same.
Then there is the jade plant, which originates from a cutting I snatched from the botanical gardens in Helsinki at the age of 19. When I intended to bring it over here to Denmark I discovered it had been forgotten for so long that the parched soil had shrunk from the pot edges, the wire holding the roots down had corroded and snapped, and the plant had capsized, lying sideways with its roots in the air. I apologized profusely, stuffed it into a bag and flew it to Copenhagen with me. Today it looks shaven on the sides because many leaves cracked off during the transport, and overgrown because I have focused on nursing it back to life before repotting and pruning. Life mangles us all up from time to time.
(Copenhagen, Denmark; March 2020)
Poor daffodils, such uniquely beautiful flowers with so many negative connotations. Daffodils are also known as narcissus, and “narcissistic” is not a nice thing to be. Why these poor flowers have to suffer by association and name to the Greek myth of Narcissus, a vain man who was turned into a daffodil, is beyond me.
To the buddhists, the lotus is a symbol of purity and transcendence: its feet bathe in the muddy bottom of the pond while its flowers and often leaves, too, rise into the pure air above it all. It is a reminder that one can have one’s roots entangled in mud and mess while still keeping a clear and pure mind above it all.
This year I have been following a personal development plan which revolves around identifying negative energy inside and around me. One of its action points is to repeat to myself when needed, “I am not my emotions”. I have found myself repeating this mantra over and over again these past few months. Another action point is to KonMari incoming energies, impressions, and matters: sort them at the door and not letting every single one in. And if needed, put the newcomers in separate rooms, close the doors, and deal with them later. I have found that my mental rooms are nearing overcrowded.
Robin Sharma says that because a lifetime is precious and finite, there is no time for negative emotions. At all. That thinking a negative thought is to waste the time it takes to think that thought. This may sound like a highly platonically theoretic view, but when I think of all the time I spent dealing with negative emotions the past year I could probably amass a few weeks of life better spent doing other things. For example fully enjoying the botanical gardens of Bologna.
(Bologna, Italy; July 2019)
This watermelon has nearly no seeds, a very thin rind, and barely any green flesh at the edges. Seedless watermelons exist – and who knows when one might run into an almost rindless watermelon in the grocery store?
Spring in Helsinki means carpets of blue scilla. Someone must have started importing these plants from the Middle East and Caucasus, and now they claim their own space in every garden and park.
Blueberries and bilberries are the same, right? Wrong. Blueberries found in our European supermarkets all-year round are cultivated highbush blueberries, juicy and light or green inside. The blue berries found in the Northern European forests are bilberries. These are the ones that stain your fingers and tongue when you eat them straight from the bush.
This blue marble 