TEN MINUTES ON MAGNUM & AU VODKA (BLUE RASPBERRY)

Golden Grove

I’ve been spending more time in the Benjamin Zephaniah Memorial Garden, planting the seeds of wild flowers and putting a small bird rooster in the branches of the plum tree. I was excited for some reason to learn that it’s a plum. I found out from my app and as soon as I read the confirmation my eyes became aware of the tiny greenish fruit hanging down everywhere. Well done. Here’s your reward. Plums.

Of course, this isn’t the Benjamin Zephaniah Memorial Garden for anyone other than me. It has an official name. But Mr. Zephaniah is why I’m here. He’s always had a place in my heart and after his death his family suggested that anyone who wants to remember him could plant something in his memory. Living in council housing, this is my shared castle. These are my shared grounds. I’m returning to the soil.

And I’m so sad that he’s gone. He seemed like an older brother. Vibrant, funny, brave, fair, passionate, just, full of love. And he wasn’t ill like I was ill. And then he died. Life goes on and on and suddenly it’s over. Broke my heart.

Last year I asked some neighbours how to go about gardening here. One woman professed a helpful level of interest, shrugging her shoulders and asking why I didn’t just get on with it? I thought there would be protocols and fiercely defended territory, but my marigolds, poppies and others were unmolested, so now I’m going large.

I’ve invested in more wild flowers (to attract bees and butterflies), then discovered seed bombs. You can’t not. For my birthday I bought the bird rooster, knowing nothing about suitable times of year, but I have at least ensured that the entrance faces in the right direction. I’m like a kid about it all. I like to imagine some little buddies moving in and raising a family, but I’m noticing an interesting level of over-investment right now. My family and I are taking bets on how long the little house will stay in the tree, before someone finds a new home for it. Then I worried about my inability to protect fledglings, should some child prove too inquisitive. All I’m seeing is disaster. Then there’s cats.

A friend moved the little house higher up the tree. Every time I walk past it, I try to make sure it’s still there without looking as if I’m looking at it. Two weeks and it’s still there. I’m amazed.

I water the seeds every evening. It gives me a chance to go outside once the sun is going down. The garden sits in the shade of the high rise, so it’s a cool spot with a couple of benches in a recess surrounded by a brick wall and hedge. Most days there are interesting cans and bottles around, as if the fairies left them.

Other times people come for a chat or a smoke, a barbecue on the concrete, to sit and listen to music, to cry, parade around bare-chested waiting for mates, hang out with girls, entertain toddlers, to sleep on a warm night. I never see a gardener.

I have though begun to have longer conversations with passing neighbours I would otherwise have seen once or twice in the last decade. I’m learning more about problems in the flats and all the reasons people might be going into the bushes in the parks (I.AM.SO.NAIVE.). I’ve also had some good tumble dryer advice and learned how other people feel when the water is cut off in the building without warning. Progress. This place does more for community building than all the community building meetings you could arrange in a cheap hotel the other side of town.

On a low income it becomes harder to find a place you can relax without handing over money or being moved on. I like to sit here with a book, or use an app to identify the plants here or the birds who come out when it’s quiet.

I can’t decide the story of these drinks. Two friends shooting the breeze? One thirsty punter (it WAS hot today)? Or successive drinkers lining them up tidily? Is it significant that they are both on the same armrest? What would each of them taste like? Are they a special deal if you have them together? I remember David Byrne’s observation about watching the purchasing decisions in trolleys queueing at a supermarket till. If he went home with someone else’s shopping would it change his life?

I’m at a crossroads - partly due to age and partly my health ‘journey’. I feel inclined to jettison some past ideas about myself and explore other options before the jig is up. Change focus. Speaking to a friend today she said she had never noticed the hawthorn looking so beautiful in bloom as it does this year. Is it a special summer or is she tuning in to something else? Metamorphosis?

Something has to give. There’s been so much anger, fear and grief in trying to adapt to all the fucking drama. So much trying to let go and yet still holding on. Such a desire to do something useful with the story that conflicts with the desire just to let it all go and move on. So much worry that I’m stuck and no road map out of this one.

If I’m quiet in the garden and I take a minute with my friends the cans, the red valerian, the roses and the plum tree, a different picture starts to form. The sparrows chirp in the hedge, the sun bounces off the maisonettes and gulls coast over. I learn about Bastard Cabbage and the learning is good. I try to imagine who first named it.

Is it possible that I am already building a better world for myself? That I hit another point in my life where everything good was happening underground and I made the mistake of thinking nothing was growing at all? I can’t give a name yet to what is coming, but something is pushing up through the soil. Who knew these cans and bottles were a necessary part of it?