Bodhi leaves half eaten apples, and the occasional pear, all over the house. I find them beneath couch cushions, on side tables, in sock drawers, abandoned and discarded, rotting. Bodhi is all about that first bite, the conquest. A dozen clean and shiny apples arrive in the fruit basket every week, each one new and unexplored. He waits, knowing if I see him I will take the apple, cut it in half, remove the seeds and offer it to him. In these instances, he eats the entire apple, leaving nothing behind but he doesn’t ask me to cut the apples. He prefers to grapple with what is too large, too much and more than he can ingest. Bodhi approaches life like half eaten apples, nothing needs to be finished, it is about the next great thing, the next forbidden something to monopolize his interest.
Yes, I know it doesn't look like much. It was only about 5 inches in diameter and 8 feet tall. The root ball was no more than 3 feet deep. But it was a sweet red-bud tree that we planted the year Bodhi was born, his placenta was buried in it's roots and like many of the trees in our neighborhood, it died (see this post to understand why) . I can't say that I mourned its death in a tangible way, rather it produced in me a sort of unnameable melancholy. I am a woman who loves the spring. I nearly live for it. When the first signs of life emerge like a haze of hope, I drink in green with the passion of a desert crawling woman sipping at an oasis. I gorge. This year has been hard. Our neighborhood isn't leafing out in native splendor, instead the tired trees seem to begrudge the effort, only offering a tender shoot or bud occasionally. The north side of many trees appear to have given up all together, too tired after a long winter...
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