Last August my dad cut the pear tree right down, so that my garden won’t be infested with dead pears come October and my dogs wouldn’t feast on them day and night. It may seem silly, but the tree really did need a rest; it was producing a ton of conference pears, all of abysmal quality, small, hard and very often mouldy before they got ripe. After many twiglet months, life has returned to the branches and today I noticed tufts of frilly white flowers high up to the sky. It made me smile and I had to take a picture of it, especially after the right downer of a day I had at work. I was stuck in a meeting with one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever met in my life. It is indeed true that consultants are usually a bunch of asses that fly very high with the unclippable wings of self-importance, but this one beats even the most blown-up kytes I’ve encountered so far. He told a colleague to shut up; another immediately left the room in outrage. I wavered and pondered, firmly in my seat, having an out of body experience, observing my life from the top of the room, wondering why and how I ended up sharing my days with people who can be so disrespectufl towards some whom they barely know. It is not the working life I had dreamt of and certainly not the working life that my studies had even remotely hinted at. I have a degree in wonderful English literature and I am completing a PhD in cultural studies. What am I doing in a heartless, soulless technical job? Yet, I smell the so-called winds of change. I have seen the tree, fatigued and bent over by the great strain. I have seen it naked and broken, contemplating the thundering clouds and the quieter days. Something is happening in my life right now and I am clutching small flowers and curly petals.
