With school going children around, September seems to be the quintessential home moving month. New course, new flat, new school if it must be, it is all coming wonderfully together. Problems only occur when one has other interests as well. In my case they were my pot producing pot plants, which by the end of September are almost but not quite ready to be harvested.
We had been staying with the uppity middle class for a year, in a sun-filled 120 square meter apartment with amenities functioning to perfection. Neighbours kept quiet distance from each other and certainly from us, some managing to produce a smile and a line in case of accidental lift sharing, others shying away from the slightest of contact. We don’t bother and we aren’t bothered either, was everybody’s feeling. The janitor kept all the stories together, as he was expected to do, ensuring that need-to-know gossip would spread through the floors fast enough to provoke reaction. As the circumstances were such and I for my own reasons not in the mood to confront them with their attitude, I felt it best to keep my yearly seed programme to myself.
Early May onwards, our sixth floor balcony was baking in eight hours of sunshine a day. I had never before experienced such thought provoking light at home and my seedlings seemed to share that mood. They soon caught on with the flooding heat. The wind at that height almost did them in though. It gave the tiny stem with the first few leaves a proper blazing and I had to quickly erect a plexiglas fence to protect their delicateness. But once well-placed they grew into the richest plants I had sofar seen in my short farming life. In June they took the well-known shape of a maría plant from a police photo, in July they were tall, in August they almost suffocated from the intense summer heat and in September they grew hairs. Next they began to give off a deep, resonating smell.
It started lightly, nothing more than the scent which had all summer hung around them. Soon enough they started loosing leaves, with honeydew glistening on hairtips. The smell was quite intense now and surely some of it must be spilling to other balconies, the fair wind always an imparcial decider.
Moveday coming and my plants were nowhere near their final self. They still had a great October ahead of them, with heads growing on skinnying necks and scores of insect life attracted to their honey. I couldn’t possibly cut them already. They needed to make the move with us and they surely wanted so, it seemed. They wanted a taste of the new place before giving up their riches, and I needed them to know the new mood myself. So I was up to transport my ladies, in their prime blossoming season. I had a feeling this wasn't going to be easy.
The only viable option always was an unseen move out of the old house and into the new house – the last one easier on the sight of it but not necessarily free of danger. First there was the main move, of course, the furniture and assorted heavy loads. Then for the smaller chunks, come sailing in every night, me driving up and down like a mad man. On the last night is was time for María and her sister to make their move.
I decided to leave it late but not after midnight, hoping for an unsuspecting yet hardly concurring timeslot. I couldn’t take my girls under the arm and walk away with them. They were too big and too obvious in case of encounter. They needed to be covered. I had some large plastic bags that we had moved clothes and linen in and two only slightly damaged of those were destined for my Marías. I stuck it onto them and closed the bag around the pot with tape, leaving them to themselves for a few hours.
I started with the lighter one, the one I had beheaded in her youth to evoke a multi head reaction, as a more experienced grower once had tipped me. I called the lift, brought her in and sank to the ground floor and onto the street to the car, parked a short but notable distance away. She quietly went her way, the multi headed one, as a bunch of star struck fools. On the backseat through the rear window they looked a sufficient unpretentious shapy thing - for the kids on the square not to show interest, I mean.
I backed up for the big one, again no one met. When I put my arms around her my face inevitably buried in her sides. I smelled her as if the plastic weren't there at all. She was one trophy to take out of this adventure and I desperately wanted her to be okay. The lift was still there, we went in alright. I decided to answer questions only, in case of sudden encounter. We made safely down and through groundfloor, with opening the heavy frontdoor without putting her down far from easily done. I let go a first sigh of relief when I was walking down the stone steps onto the street. So far no one were going to get send the police on me.
I went up a last time to get a bag with documents and say goodbye to the sun blessed terrace. The new place wasn’t bad at all but nowhere near this league. When down again and approaching the car I saw them standing in the luggage compartment, my many headed skinny girl and my fully blossoming big girl, their grey all over body protective privacy wear making them look like two girls in burkas. Would they easily overcome the trauma, perhaps never even experience any setbacks? I gave them a careful ride, breathing in their scent of complicity. You’re going to be okay over there, I told them.
It is funny how she grows on you, sweet María. When consciousness breaks through and the plant begets personality, it is hard not to treat her as a dear friend with an ability problem. You carry her around and you give her as much sun as you can and when you believe all of her sweetness has finally flown out of her you take a knife and kill her. I did them the other day, after three weeks of testing my new neighbours’ resolve with mind blowingly deep and fatty smiles producing smells drifting from my balcony. Let winter come.
