Lush Green, Crape Myrtle, Fleas, etc. - My Midsummer Capriccio

IMG_8108 Crape Myrtle in Full Bloom (Photo credit: carlfbagge)

Since I learned words "lush green" (from my dear blogger friend Madilyn - aka "jerseylil's 2 cents") early this year, these two words jumped in my mind wherever I went, simply because that's all I saw during the season. Trees in NC are so dense that I once complained they blocked my view. Now, I learned to love them. They did not block my view, they are the view! Had I lived somewhere with wide open vista, I may lose the sight of all these beautiful plants. As I drive around everyday, I enjoy watching all the dense woods and I realized that I should only appreciate them because in somewhere people have to pay to just see them. I can't be too greedy!

North Carolina is a natural huge plantation. Here I see the most trees in my life. Not only "green", other colors joined landscape as well since spring. Pink, purple, red, white, all different kinds, show up here and there, made the view even "lusher". Among all these colorful plants, I found crape myrtle the most showy. They have all qualities of different plants: trees and flowers, deciduous or evergreen. You would mistake them as small bushes when they are young, but some of them in fact grow into 30 feet high. They are as elegant as roses or rhododendrons, as upright as maples or pines. I absolutely fall in love with them and very pleased to see we have many of them in the area. I even decide to plant several of them around my house.

Oh I love plants. So much more than I love animals. As matter of fact, I am not sure if I love animals - include humans - any more. Let's face it, what plants contribute to the earth? Oxygen, beautiful views, nutrition, cure remedy, you name it, all good thing, right? What do they take for survive? Water, light and air, which is almost nothing! For what I know plants make their own "foods" out of air and light. What animals take? Other lives. And what do they do to the world? Jeopardize each others life! Life of humans and animals is completely rely upon other lives, both animals and plants. We humans could not live independently like plants. We have to kill other lives in order to survive our own.

I have to wonder, if there were a designer, is this (living by killing each others) really a good design?

A few days ago while I was driving, I suddenly wondered, if I look at earth from sky, and imagine the earth as a cute little pet, such as a dog, plants - trees or flowers - must be the dog's hairs, beautiful and soft, nice to be touched, yet they protect the dog from harsh environment. Then what are we humans like? Fleas. Yes, we, together with all other kinds of animals, are fleas, or parasites, live on the body of this beautiful dog, bring her/him only trouble, while he/she doesn't need us at all.

I understand I am being cynic again. I better give more credit to humans or animals, since their (our) being here is not their choice. I have made decision, in my next life if I cannot choose to be an eagle - which is a selfish choice, as I just mentioned animals' lives depend on other life forms, I would be a tree, absorb light and air, quietly be part of this selfless and unconscious beauty of the Earth.

Right now it's middle of Summer. Humidity has been giving me trouble, but the beautiful view makes it worth it. And while I enjoy this lush view, I patiently wait for the autumn, another highlight of the year.

Do I Deserve Help? My Pride And My disappointment

The Help (Photo credit: __MaRiNa__)

During my relapse I am extremely debilitated so I often need help. But, I am living alone, also I happened to be a person who never learned how to ask help. What's worse, I am a person who doesn't look like need help. My relatively strong body build, my absolutely decisive countenance, my firm stride as long as my health permit me to be vertical, all these qualities make girls want to depend on me, guys want to leave me alone. This, also is why I better live alone during my chronic condition.

I have been in major relapse since June, and just started recovering since recent several days. This morning I feel almost perfect so I wanted to move several gardening stones (small size like football!) back to my backyard. Trust me, this is far less than a piece of cake for anyone in normal health condition, but for me, it is a serious task, so serious that I planned to do but have not touched it for days due to the fact that it might trigger another crash, which also could cause the cancellation of my weekend classes, on which my current income depends. Anyhow this morning I felt I could do it, at least I could do part of it. I also had my strategy, first to put several stones in my small dolly and push them to backyard. Plus, the fresh morning air was tempting, so I put myself in action.

Right after I put about 5 stones into my dolly, I realized that I once again overestimated my strength. Half way to my backyard there is a small slope, and I realized that if I "pushed" myself to pull the dolly up, I might have big trouble following up, and my weekend classes will be again jeopardized . So I decided to stop right there no matter what. But my dolly was right in the middle of lawn, between my house and my neighbor's. Just as I was wondering what to do, I saw a guy was knocking my neighbor's door, so I asked him if he could help me because I had heart problem. Since I was already breathless, my voice was extremely weak. He looked at me and said: I too have heart problem. And he lifted his shirt to show the scar on his front chest. So I immediately said never mind.

What happened the rest was that I struggled to move the stones one by one to my "territory", which is only a couple yards away from the dolly, then I took the dolly back to my backyard, and after that I immediately went back and lied down for a little while, let my heart back to normal function. So far, I don't feel big trouble but, I already could not cook lunch as I planned. I decide to boil some dumplings instead, because it costs almost no energy at all.

Thing is, I believe that guy could help me. Though he does have scar on his chest, but from his attitude, his loud voice, his brisk stride, I can hardly believe that he could not handle what I asked. Why didn't he offer me help? I don't know exactly, but based on my past experience, I have reason to believe it was because I did not convince him that I needed help. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I happen to have a relatively big build, don't look fragile, so I generally give people an impression that I am a strong person. During my past years, I just cannot count how many times I had to handle things I was actually not able to handle, and caused my crashes sometime relapse for days or weeks, and these disasters could be avoided only if people knew how serious my health trouble was so they could give me a hand. But I am very proud person, I would rather die than having people pity me, or misjudge me. Thinking that people would take my weakness and my asking for help as "mentally weak" would simple kill me. Truth is, this character of mine certainly contribute its huge share on worsening my health problems.

Of course, lessons after lessons, I have learned that I need to take it easy on how people think of me. It doesn't matter. I also should learn to be responsible to my body, my health. It's the only thing my life rely on. If I need help, I should just ask. As one of my blogger friends said, asking help is being responsible to yourself.

On the other hand, I can't help but feel so disappointed about some of our fellow human beings. The selfishness, the distrusting each other, and many more negative aspects of human nature, just darken my view on life. And sometime, I just can't help but think, that this earth is not for me, simply because I am too good to be here.

Call me cynic!