Sunday, July 21, 2019

from kindness

Otter Coop is a store that invites wandering.
It's a grocery store,
and a clothing store,
a shoe store,
hardware shop,
farm supply store,
garden centre,
tack shop,
card shop,
boutique,
coffee shop,
cafeteria,
bakery,
toy store,
post office,
pharmacy.....
My dad loved shopping there because he could sit down and sip a mug of coffee and strike up a conversation while my Mom and I loaded our carts with jugs of milk and cartons of eggs.
Time has hastened onward and I shop alone now.
I fit grocery shopping into the gaps and chinks of my days as needed.
The other sort of shopping, the window and wander sort of shopping is taken as needed too.  Like a prescription of sorts.
It was on one of those wanders that I found myself standing in a gardening aisle lined floor to ceiling with bags of bulbs and tubers, their bright cardboard packaging startling me to a standstill.
Dahlia, Hosta, Day Lily, Begonia, Gladioulus.
I reached out and pulled one from its hanger, turning the packaging and squinting into the sawdust for signs of life.
I turned to go as my eyes drifted up, up, up to the top row.
Gloxinias!!
Oh, Gloxinias, with their giant velvet bells.
Ruffled bells.
And giant velvet leaves too.
My parents always had Gloxinias; regal red, luscious burgundy, blooming in a window amidst the green tangle.
My father in-law had them too. Always.
I stood on tip-toe to reach one down and had to use another package to inch it forward on the hook.
As I turned it over and over I could see a sturdy little shoot of tender green, bravely sprouting.
I felt a desperate pity, like looking at an abandoned puppy on a doorstep.
I rushed to the till, averting my gaze from all the rest.
I planted, watered and hovered.
Up it came.
And up.
Seemed kind of leggy.
Maybe the light filtering through the blinds wasn't enough. Light filtering forest is different from light filtering through window blinds.
Humid mountain air is different from a drinking glass of tap water.
Poor little Gloxinia.
I moved it outside where it could look up and see the sky and feel the rain.
There should be a comfort in that I thought.
I hadn't considered the bugs though.
Our Canadian bugs.
Their eyes lit up with joy.
They fell upon my poor Gloxinia as though it were expensive imported cheese.
It's back in the kitchen again, recovering from kindness.

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