Wi(l)dely Accessible

A playmate in my growing years. An encyclopedia for self-discovery in the questioning ones. A guide that taught me how to observe. A place I return to when I need solace. The outdoors has been an all-weather companion. Over time, I learnt that all beings have seasons. They reset. They strain. They endure stress—often with far fewer buffers than we have. Watching butterflies in the morning sun, I learnt that wings need time to warm before they can be trusted to fly. From barnacles, anemones, and crabs, I learnt something else. That holding still is not giving up. That endurance and adaptation don’t always look like movement. Being outdoors never made me feel like a visitor. It made me feel patterned alongside other life. Sharing the same light. The same tides. The same weather. Once, as a 3-yr-old I found a small fish in the rain formed puddles outside my home. It felt like finding a secret. I ran in to bring over a Horlicks jar so I can take a little wilderness home. When I realized my home wasn’t the fish’s home and saw it turn green with grief and bereavement, my father and I made a trip to the beach for a happy send off. Once, as a 5-yr-old, I was dragging my feet to the kindergarten, my mother introduced me to touch me nots. Soon I was ready half hour before school time, so I could touch every one of the touch me nots and greet them a merry morning. I imagined, they folded into a graceful bow to return my enthusiastic prodding each morning. I’ve never paid heed to their admonitory name touch – me – not. Not then and not in the 40 years since. Perhaps, one day they will unison in a uniform middle finger instead of an imaginary bow. Once, as a 25-yr-old I learnt to not treat life as décor. I returned home from a trip to Araku valley with a bunch of cuttings from the great old mama plants. I read up volumes about their care and spent every morning and evening fussing over them. The cuttings eventually called out for the lush valley soil enriched and drooped with yearning. In terror of losing them all, I surrendered the surviving cuttings to the apartment gardens. They grew but with restraint and ached for the phantom limb. Today, as a 45-yr-old I found a paper wasp’s nest in my wi(l)dely accessible balcony garden, previously host to sunbirds, red vented bulbuls, dragonfly, butterfly pupae, banana slugs, a snail I named Shelby. Perhaps this is what I've always done, loved the outdoors so fiercely I've tried to fold it into my arms and carry it home. The fish knew it. The cuttings knew it. Now the wasp has made it plain. We say don't touch, don't consume, don't take; and mean it for everyone but ourselves. Our enthusiasm is its own kind of hunger. I got two stings and got off easy. I know that I am nature as much as I seek the outside around me. The large collection of shells must go back to becoming row houses for the hermit crabs. So should the dried flowers and leaves, to become mulch for another progeny to rise. Perhaps even the plants I hold hostage in painted porcelain pots in my garden must be resituated and rehabilitated back into limitless expanses. One day I will fuse with earth, grow moss on me and have someone sow a few native plants that will host a few micro habitats, and I will hold them all close so none will carry them away from me.