grouper52
Masterpiece
The role of bonsai in keeping me alive, sane, and moving forward here in the Philippines would be hard to quantify, but it is enormous.
My wife, who is from here, and whose idea it was to retire here, is doing quite well since we arrived, better than she was doing during the 2+ years we spent preparing for the move. An RN ER nurse, she was being eaten alive by her ever more demanding job, and retired early, while I - a Board Certified psychiatrist in a thoughtfully planned out end-of-career private practice that was a joy most of the time - could have worked another ten years or more before my powers started to wane or I grew burned out by the job.
All along, as we planned the move, my wife held out the lure of spending my retirement in a place where there is a long tradition of bonsai, and many trees and practitioners to work with. The lure of collecting, and of possibly doing another book on the undiscovered artists here, was held out to me as well.
When here visiting the last several times in preparation for the move, I bought a huge bougainvillea for her sister, who claims, and is claimed by my wife, to be my student. But she really has no interest in doing anything to the tree that might make it more attractive, content to just put in some half-hearted wavy bends on the very long branches, as is the style here, and to leave the funky base - with great potential if repotted lower - exactly as it is, refusing even to re-pot now when it shows signs of desperately needing it.
But then there are my two little trees here - the no-name and the bougy - that I've worked on intermittently during our preliminary trips here, and the great many others I hope to buy or find, building a collection I will enjoy growing old with.
I say all this by way of prelude to the fact that such a move to a very foreign culture, and climate, are very difficult. Nothing here is easy to do, or smooth, and the climate is very, very unpleasant down here in Manila - although it will be very much better when we get settled up in Baguio soon.
I am no stranger to travel in foreign lands and unpleasant climates, nor to the kind of on-going phantasmagorical, shifting combinations of bodily symptoms and health problems that have increasingly laid me low since arrival a week ago - to the point where, on occasion, I find myself wondering amidst my fevered delirium if it might just be better to die now than suffer my way through whatever combination of bugs have invaded and laid low my body's reserves and defenses, and my spirit's will to live.
But that's exactly where bonsai enters the equation: my two little trees, and the promise of more, as small as that quantum of solace may seem to others, has kept me buoyed up and moving forward with determination when I would otherwise have simply given up. It's been a pleasant and unexpected surprise, this power of the love of bonsai.
My wife, who is from here, and whose idea it was to retire here, is doing quite well since we arrived, better than she was doing during the 2+ years we spent preparing for the move. An RN ER nurse, she was being eaten alive by her ever more demanding job, and retired early, while I - a Board Certified psychiatrist in a thoughtfully planned out end-of-career private practice that was a joy most of the time - could have worked another ten years or more before my powers started to wane or I grew burned out by the job.
All along, as we planned the move, my wife held out the lure of spending my retirement in a place where there is a long tradition of bonsai, and many trees and practitioners to work with. The lure of collecting, and of possibly doing another book on the undiscovered artists here, was held out to me as well.
When here visiting the last several times in preparation for the move, I bought a huge bougainvillea for her sister, who claims, and is claimed by my wife, to be my student. But she really has no interest in doing anything to the tree that might make it more attractive, content to just put in some half-hearted wavy bends on the very long branches, as is the style here, and to leave the funky base - with great potential if repotted lower - exactly as it is, refusing even to re-pot now when it shows signs of desperately needing it.
But then there are my two little trees here - the no-name and the bougy - that I've worked on intermittently during our preliminary trips here, and the great many others I hope to buy or find, building a collection I will enjoy growing old with.
I say all this by way of prelude to the fact that such a move to a very foreign culture, and climate, are very difficult. Nothing here is easy to do, or smooth, and the climate is very, very unpleasant down here in Manila - although it will be very much better when we get settled up in Baguio soon.
I am no stranger to travel in foreign lands and unpleasant climates, nor to the kind of on-going phantasmagorical, shifting combinations of bodily symptoms and health problems that have increasingly laid me low since arrival a week ago - to the point where, on occasion, I find myself wondering amidst my fevered delirium if it might just be better to die now than suffer my way through whatever combination of bugs have invaded and laid low my body's reserves and defenses, and my spirit's will to live.
But that's exactly where bonsai enters the equation: my two little trees, and the promise of more, as small as that quantum of solace may seem to others, has kept me buoyed up and moving forward with determination when I would otherwise have simply given up. It's been a pleasant and unexpected surprise, this power of the love of bonsai.
(?x N + ?=✌) 
