Sunday, October 04, 2009
I own a jungle.
Complete with lizards, spiders, millipedes and a garden snake, it surrounds my house as far as the eye can see, well at least as far as my eye can see. My jungle is barely five feet from my kitchen window. On windy days, it is even closer. Coconut branches finger the dishes drying near the sink. During the rainy season, the jungle moves into my house, taking hold in places that normal support spiders. And those spiders are very spoilt. Sheltered in the creases of my walls and ceilings, behind bags of clothing and miscellaneous finds for some society-altering art project, (in the back of my mind), these spiders have gotten fat.
There is a Chinese saying about spiders – to kill them brings bad luck. I should then be the luckiest person on this island. And maybe I am.
Through my ups and downs this year, from my recently found phobia about flying, to my sliding phases of artist block reaching so deep into my bones that it hurts just to think about painting, I realised just this morning, that my jungle could possibly be my saving grace.
It has saved me from going hungry, and for the most part has absorbed a good bit of the intense heat that has exhausted me on top of everything else. I have coconuts, green bananas, bilimbi (a cousin of the carambola) and chayamansa (mayan tree spinach). Broad leaf thyme, lemongrass, chadon beni (Mexican coriander), sugarapples, limes, tangerines, mandarins, ugli fruit and mangoes, West Indian cherries, avocadoes and cashews (the one with the nut) grow in my jungle and most within easy reach of a rod and fruit picker.
They have come into season one after the other, many at the same time. They may not sound appetizing, but they are nutritious and have kept me from going hungry in this extended period when my paintings are not selling, (probably because I am not painting) and projects that I have received funding for (in principle) have stalled somewhere along the line.
I have not thought to paint my plant saviours as of yet. I have taken lots of photos though. Perhaps that will be my stepping out from under this artist block. Painting my gratitude for the simple and quiet life I have surrounded by my own jungle, watched over by the spiders and the large lizard that lives in my bathroom.
