Rummaging Through A Drawer

The printer had run out of ink. Actually it had enough black ink to print my document but it would not because it had run out of magenta ink. It has been a mystery to me why the color inks keep running out even though the bulk of the printing I do is just black and white. With some irritation at this thought, I started looking in the drawer for spare cartridges.

Have ever you searched for something in your cupboard and found all sorts of long lost or forgotten things except what you were looking for? Well, this drawer turned out to be a veritable museum. As I rummaged through the contents of the drawer, I felt like an archaeologist. A deep drawer hides more than it shows. History started to unfold before my eyes. 

After I pulled out the unused network and printer cables that had been just shoved into the drawer and had become annoyingly tangled, I got to the interesting things - an electronic rolodex that had not even been opened, a warranty card for a keyboard from Compusa, a user manual for an electronic organizer I never knew I had bought and which was not among those present, and several boxes of mini-disks with each disk capable of storing all of 1.44 MB of data but no longer capable of being read by my PC. Old receipts, and other odd documents like bank statements (the bank has changed name a few times since then having been sold to or swallowed by bigger banks) popped up. There was a receipt for old clothes and other items donated to Salvation Army with just the date '9/10' and a signature. I wondered which year that was for.

There were farewell cards from previous jobs. I could barely make out the signatures now and could not tell the names for some. Some I simply did not recall even though the names were clearly written. But it was good to read the appreciative messages and recall the details of the projects. 

The drawer continued to give out its bounty. A stack of old credit cards and store cards (many of the stores have now gone out of business) was neatly bundled by a rubber band. Next was a bag with chess pieces but I have no idea where the board went. Ditto for the scrabble tiles (why did I save just a handful of these?). Old reading glasses, regular pencils, mechanical pencils, pens that will not write any longer, erasers, etc. kept emerging. There was a stack of photographic paper which I think came with a printer I bought ages ago. A small appointments book for the year 2001 and a few maps had settled at the bottom. 

The final two things to be found in the drawer are a complete mystery to me - 'Sliding window roller no. G-3038' still in its package and a small device enclosed in a translucent green sleeve. I did not recall buying the former and it was probably there when I bought the house (the drawer is part of a built-in desk). The latter was totally intriguing and a little scary. It has the name of a company (I am not saying which!) on the outside with a web address under that. The actual device has a display window with two buttons ('MODE' and 'SET) beneath. What could this be? Should I put in the battery and see what it is? But I am afraid it may start something or transmit a signal to someone. I smell the beginning of a science fiction story here. And I did find a printer cartridge too but alas, it was not the right colour. I wonder if I can just use it in place of the magenta anyway.

As I contemplated the motley collection of objects, I was struck by something. I have been pushing  odds and ends into such drawers for years with the idea that you never know when they might be needed or may be without any idea. I think this process is not different from the way things are stored in my memory. 

The drawers of memory banks are vast and bottomless. There must be plenty of things taking up space there and cluttering my mind - all sorts of trivia, some useful perhaps but never recallable when needed, feelings of all kind which exist mostly as vague impressions but some still capable of stirring me if remembered, and so on. A good deal of these were not saved consciously I am sure. And they can surface again under appropriate conditions. Who knows what memories may be triggered by a dive into a cupboard or a drawer?

I wish I could rummage through the drawers of my mind like the ones in my desk. It will probably be a good thing to clean them up now and then. I am excited and apprehensive about what I will find there. Dare I stir them? Some things are locked away perhaps because they are unpleasant and better left alone. The mind is known to do that to keep us sane I am told. 

Take this past year. I am sure many of us would like to send 2020 to a deep and dark corner of our memories. About this time in 2019, we were looking forward to a great year. If only we had had 20/20 vision into the future! Who would have guessed that walking into a bank with face masks would become a normal thing in 2020? Things that we take for granted have to be carefully planned or even avoided now. Working in a normal office setting seems like a remote possibility for the time being. It has also been a difficult time for all and many have lost loved ones. Just the other day a classmate and dear friend of mine succumbed to Covid-19. 

Years hence, when some future drawer cleaning brings 2020 back, it is not going to be recalled with nostalgia but with dread and pain. But with the vaccines for Covid arriving, it is safe to say that we will say goodbye to 2020 with a certain relief and with reason to hope for good tidings in the coming year. And on that optimistic note, let me end this post.

Here's wishing you all pleasant memories and uncluttered drawers! Happy New Year! 

Garden Delight

I did it! I had been wanting to do this for quite some time now. Finally, I terminated the services of my long time gardener. When I say 'gardener', I use the term loosely. I paid him a monthly fee to come and tend to the yard - mow the lawn and generally tidy up. I don't think he actually knew anything about the plants and trees in the yard. Pushing around a lawn mower and the ability to use the trimmer and weed whacker do not constitute real gardening skills. He was an accidental gardener. For all I know, he might have been an accountant or a teacher in Vietnam before he migrated. But the steep learning curve in mastering the English language probably made it difficult to enter those kinds of jobs. At least that's my theory.

I did not actually hire this man in case you are wondering about that. The one that I had before him took on a job with a landscaping company and brought him on as a replacement. You may ask why I kept him on for so long. I confess I didn't have the heart to fire him. Actually, I quite liked the man. He was a genial person with a broad smile all the time. A most cheerful man, I would say. The problem was that my amazing facility with English (!) was of no use when trying to explain to him what I needed done. I could never be sure what he would end up doing. Even with this severe limitation, things might have been alright if he was an accomplished gardener. As I mentioned before, he was not. 

He had a firm belief that any plant that had managed to reach a certain threshold height had earned the right to keep growing. As a result, many a weed managed to gain a foothold in my yard. Ivy has taken over much of the ground under the fruit trees and has started to climb them. He even fertilized a patch that looked green but was just full of weeds after a good spell of rain. I had to turn off the water to that area to keep them from flourishing but they are still going strong. After all, this is their native territory and the plants that we try to grow are really the intruders.

I used to devote some time to the care of the plants and did succeed in my efforts to an extent. But over the last few years, I had been really busy with work and had neglected the garden. I noticed that the rose bushes had stopped looking like bushes and had few or no flowers during the last couple of years. Those that put out a lot of new growth did not produce flowers. I don't want to bore you with details but grafted roses may put out new canes or branches called suckers (follow this link if you are curious about this) which typically will not produce blooms. The growth I was looking at was from suckers which, I am sure, the gardener had failed to remove no doubt because they looked so healthy. 

My mother used to be quite interested in gardening. My father would get transferred every two or three years, and so we lived in rented houses. These usually had some fruit trees and a coconut palm or two. My mother would plant a vegetable garden if a decent patch of earth was available. It was fun to watch the different vegetable as they came up - brinjal (eggplant), ladies' fingers (okra), beans, etc. There were gourd varieties too - some growing on the ground, others requiring a trellis or a little pandal. The snake gourd had to be weighted with a little stone to keep it growing straight. It was a daily ritual to measure its length or count the other vegetables but we were told not to do that as that invited the evil eye and could stunt the growth. 

Evil eye was not the only danger to ward off. The house usually had a compound wall or fence and a gate to keep the stray cattle out. Occasionally someone would forget to close the gate and a stray cow or goat would get in and eat the plants much to our consternation. The plants were also vulnerable to pests. We used to apply fertilizer and pesticide from time to time but I remember that these were always the organic kind. I don't recall ever using any chemicals.

The obvious payoff of course was the ability to harvest and enjoy the vegetables and share some with neighbours but just seeing the plants come up and flourish was exciting and satisfying. When we moved, there was a tinge of sadness in leaving behind a garden. Usually we moved during summer when the garden had not been planted. One time we had to move just as the plants were in full bloom and about to set fruit. This was very disappointing to all of us but especially to my mother. She talked about it for months after we moved. I can still recall the long row of brinjal plants with beautiful  purple flowers we left behind.

I think my mother's enthusiasm rubbed off on me to some extent. But I certainly don't have the dedication she had. I generally stick to perennials which would bloom year after year while requiring minimal care. I hired a gardener to take care of the lawn, the sprinklers, etc. as I did not want to invest in all the equipment needed and take on their maintenance. As for vegetables, I was not ready to commit to the time and effort they require. After spotting a couple of bunnies cavorting in the yard, I decided that it would be too difficult anyway to keep the plants from being eaten by them. But I am glad that I planted some fruit trees such as this pomegranate which have been giving us their bounty faithfully every year. 

All in all, I have been satisfied with the whole experience. Except now, all of a sudden, I have been rudely awakened to the deterioration even though it has been going on under my very nose for quite a while. The perennials have withered over the years, the roses have become scraggy or bloomless, and the lawn  is either bare or overgrown with weeds. I wistfully recall the purple and red fuchsia that I used to have in the front yard. It is time to focus my efforts once again on the yard. The first thing to do of course was to replace the gardener. With a heavy heart, I told him that I no longer needed his services. The new gardener seems knowledgeable and I am hoping that I will soon have a colourful garden again.