Did you notice 'the tiny, tiny wayside flowers'? ~ Malinda Words

Pic by Kasun De Silva

A quote greeted me this morning from one of the walls of my sister’s house in Bala Cynwyd, a suburb of Pennsylvania. The walls of her house are decorated with quotes, paintings and photographs, each related to the lives and characters of the residents. This one was from ‘The Painted Drum,’ a novel by Karen Louise Erdrich.

I hadn’t head of this Native American author of novels, poetry and children’s books before. The novel, as per a blurb I found, is said to ‘explore the often fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, the strength of family, and the intricate rhythms of grief with all the grace, wit, and startling beauty that characterizes this acclaimed author's finest work.’

The quote:

‘Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.’

Starts dark and ends in sunlight.

I am glad I am here in this house of words. I am glad I glanced at this wall and saw this quote. It spoke to me at the right time. The ‘right time’ is when one needs the words and the words appear. ‘Words’ as a metaphor of course for all things are eminently readable.

There’s more on ‘the right time.’ I read this a few minutes before reading a text from a mother about a daughter who has left home for studies. She know it would probably be a few years before she gets to see her little girl. The house seems empty. She is sad, naturally.

Louise Erdrich doesn’t know me, my wife or our daughter. She wrote about apples which of course don’t fall around us in heaps. But there are things, flowers for example, that turn parts of our garden into the softest carpets. There are skies that play the music of the rain. There are bird calls. There’s sunlight that write leaf-stories and wind that carry rhythms from lands we’ve never visited. And there’s a little girl who was an infant once and will remain an infant even though she’s grown into a young woman and is seen as one.

Her mother, perhaps more than anyone else so far, has experienced this little girl in the orchards of her growing up and therefore even when broken by solitude the poetry of memory and imagination that will console, will delight and give her peace.

Coincidentally, I was anticipating the words of Louise Erdrich a few days ago when I saw a photograph posted on Facebook by Kasun De Silva, indefatigable traveler and capturer of innumerable delights in our much celebrated and equally vilified island.

Tharindu Amunugama, another traveler with an eye for frame, color, line and texture, would say ‘a slow road.’ A road that bends. ‘Dedugala?’ Tharindu recognised the place. ‘Yep. Pelampitiya to be precise,’ Kasun acknowledged.

Kasun captured a bend in the road, a man and a woman both carrying the visible burdens of living, glazed by the dampness of the impending invasion of mist and perhaps rain. And the flowers.

දැක්කද?
පාර දෙපැත්තේ
චූටි චූටි ලස්සන කැලෑ මල්

පිපිලා

There are tiny, tiny wild flowers blooming on either side of the road. On either side of all the roads of all our lives. There are flowers that come in the form of a smile and a memory, like a lullaby and an eminently forgivable and forgiven childish misdemeanor. Lots and lots of flowers. They are by the roadsides of our thoughts and feelings, sometimes unseen because we are overwhelmed by destinations and our eyes are fixed on the road.

There are flowers and apples, fruit of all kinds, flavors and fragrances that have left their traces on our lives. Sweetness that will not go waste. Unless we let is happen, unless we refuse to see the flowers, unless we are unaware of the orchards and gardens we inhabit simply because we let the breaks and the breaking blind us to it all.

There’s a little girl who is a young woman. A mother who was once as young as she is. They have embraced and therefore will always keep each other warm. They will heal each other with words and silences. And flowers that will not be passed without glance as they walk the slow roads to destinations yet unknown. And there's a quote, which when read, will give peace to one and all.

malindadocs@gmail.com

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is a new series. Links to previous articles in this new series are given below]

25 July 2023

Did you notice 'the tiny, tiny wayside flowers'?

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