Market Friday: organising gifted orchids in hanging pots.

The hot weather began to bother me as my shirt was always wet from perspiration. I had been sending express messages to the rain gods for some rain and cooler weather. It took them about five days to dispatch the rain clouds. I was very grateful to these Indian deities who never failed to send me some rain. I had this special drawing or painting, done by some Indian priests, of Indian deities for making rain in difficult times. This was a mesmerising old painting which seemed to draw my attention into the details; this painting was like a portal to another mysterious dimension.

The rainstorm came as a big relief to my pot plants and newly gifted ten orchids from an old friend. Each orchid had orchid blooms but I did manage to break two stems off during the packing and transportation.

As soon as I arrived at the countryside house, I had to unpack these ten orchids which were bought from a nursery in Nakornpathom some 500 kilometers away. So, these orchids weren’t grown by local nursery. I was a bit anxious that they couldn’t breathe during the train journey and had been suffocated. Luckily they were quite tough young orchids, they seemed very happy to be in natural surroundings under shady trees.

I accidentally broke a big stem of orchid blossoms while I was trying to put them into hanging plastic pots. The other stem of green orchids was broken during the packing. I apologised to these orchids for my clumsiness. I hoped other orchids wouldn’t be offended for hurting their friends. Luckily we had just enough hanging pots for these ten orchids.

It took me longer than I thought in organising ten orchids into seven pots. Some were quite picky about their companions. The pale pink orchid liked to be by herself while the roudy deep purple ones preferred to have lively friends. Then I tried to take photos of these new orchids which turned out to be more problematic than I expected. I wasn’t good at photographing flowers and macro photos. The lighting was very difficult for taking sharp photos with good contrast.

I checked the old set of tiny orchids which my neighbour gave me several months ago. Some didn’t make it through the hot season, they were dried up and gone. But some yellow and dead looking stem actually had a sign of new life. Very tiny green shoots emerged out of dead stems. The drive to live and thrive by these tiny orchids surprised me and shamed me as I would have readily given up in such dry and hot conditions.

I was so glad to see a few tiny green shoots trying to relive the life of the dead stems. These small orchids had so much courage and perseverance under very tough conditions. My gardener often forgot about the orchids, several orchids had died in dry hot weather at the back of the garden. These tough tiny orchids inspired me to be more patient and persevere in hopeless and pointless situations. If they could survive the tough time without any help from me and my gardener, I ought to take the unexpected challenges that came my way.

Some old orchids I bought online seemed to be giving up after several months. One had disappeared from the pot, I suspected that some birds had used the dried up stems for their nests. One orchid kept me anxious for months as I couldn’t see any new green shoot. This reflected badly on me as it seemed very similar to my life; some aspects of me seemed to have bern stagnated and ‘dead’ without any improvements. I was quite frustrated as to how to find the right anecdotes. It was like being under a spell or a curse. Someone might have done a woodoo on me! Perhaps some old grudges or enemy who I had long forgotten.

But the tiny green shoots of orchids did survive all difficulties, so I ought to use positivity to overcome the haphazard bad luck or woodoo from the past. I thanked these orchids for trying their best to survive and thrive during the bad times. They gave me food for thoughts and good examples for my inspirations. I told them I would try to look after them more consistently. It would be lovely to see these orchids looking happy and showing off their colourful blossoms.