I don’t remember the last time I was this elated about something. You know when you just can’t keep calm. Or quiet. Its just itching to get out. Like I want to shout on a mountain top kind of thing.
So I finally got a cactus! Okay, didn’t ‘get’ it necessarily, someone got me a cactus as a first gift. And I don’t remember the last time a gift got me all mushy like that.
I think for as long as plants have existed, I have always wanted a cactus. It isn’t my favorite plant. Baobab take the first prize. But I’ve been looking for small baobabs to no avail. By small I mean like a 100 years small. Juzi I told my dad that I had never seen a small baobab, I was asking if he had ever seen one. And I forgot about that topic. Until when suddenly on the road some days later, he stopped on a highway and made a U-turn, to show me a ‘small’ baobab along Mombasa highway. I have never been more satisfied. My mind went into a ‘ so they do exist’. I admit that I had been getting worried about the possibility of baobabs going extinct. I mean, if small ones don’t exist, then probably we were seeing the last of their awesome kind.
Anyway, I had digressed. So since I kinda can’t have a baobab in a pot( I think its possible, but I might have to search the ends of earth to know how to either germinate one, or find a tiny little baobab seedling anywhere), I had settled on my second favorite plant, a Cactus. Third one is acacia in case you want to know. And fourth one, up to the last one are all arid and semi-arid plants.
Its more like giving a tribute to my roots. I come from a dry place. And I find that art rarely represents us. Like I don’t see my hometown represented by anything I ever see around. Be it drawings, pictures or even where videos are shot. So home always feels like that alien place that exists in my heart. Well, and in my love for arid things. I could say I am more of a desert girl. Explains why Turkana has been one of my most idolized travel destinations. Like I think if I traveled to 3 African countries and when I finally set foot in Turkana, the Turkana experience will feel more like home, in a different way. Also explains why I was so damn excited to go to Chalbi desert.
Anyway, don’t remember where we were in this story, but I got a cactus!! Was almost considering hugging it, but that was moments before it reminded me that even touching it would hurt. Its producing this prickly little thorns that get into the skin and kinda itch. Which reminds me of the sun at home. I love sunny weather, but there is a reason we don’t walk around at noon at home, the sun will fry you alive.
So after getting my cactus and hoping my excitement kinda subsides so that we get into the business of taking care of it, not that it requires day to day care- which is another reason why I love it, it occurred to me, that this is actually the first thing, or person ( let’s just settle on living thing), that I have chosen to take care of. Like life didn’t give it to me the way we don’t choose family etc, but that I’ve gone out of my way to love this weird plant and now I have it in my house and its dependent on me for survival.
And my heart is so elated! To date I’m always surprised at how ‘simple’ my heart’s desires are. Like the things I love and desire are so simple, that I’m surprised by how easy it would be to date myself ( ahem 😂😄)
Anyhow, this cactus has validated so many things in my life. At this point I think I sound like those first time mothers saying how they are now seeing the world in different beautiful lenses since their babies come. That is so me right now. Anyway I should probably finish writing this so that I continue watching videos of what not to do in raising cacti.
Ooh..and one last motivational quote from a new mother ( of a beautiful- no baby is ever ugly, cactus), you see all those clowns you are crying over for breaking your heart? Just leave them. Like don’t think even twice about it. One day you shall be minding your own business in the land of the living, and someone, who may not be necessarily yours, shall have listened to those weird ideas you alone thought sane enough to hold and put them to heart. ( for clarification, I’m the sole custody holder of this baby- not sharing my rights with anyone, be pricked by yours😆)
Of course I shall be sharing, or do I say over sharing , pictures of my living thing, ooh wait, I should probably name it. Anyway, let the infancy period first pass before we do so, in our community we let things first pass through their most vulnerable state before fully celebrating them. Lest people look at them with bad eyes😎
Mwende Kyalo 