Bougainvillea

Has it really been a full week since I last posted? Wow..the week has flown by. So much for me determination to write more frequently.

This past weekend I did yard work. This winter we've had many nights below freezing. This is an unusual thing for Phoenix. A couple times of reaching freezing happens, but weeks of hard freezes have killed many trees and bushes throughout the city. I have a bougainvillea in my front yard. Here is a picture of one for those unfamiliar:




It is a pretty bush that we let grow really big through the summer and fall. It also has huge thorns. I just googled bougainvillea thorn to see if I could get a picture of one for you. The first one hundred hits or so dealt with people in different medical forums asking for advice after getting poked, pricked or embedded with a thorn from this delightful plant. This just goes to show me that my frustrations and dealing with this plant are not unique to me. Heh. All of the branches on my 12 foot high bush died with the freeze and the leaves turned black. Yuck! So, now that it seems to have warmed up, I went and chopped it all off. I have all the scratches to prove it.

I had misplaced my gloves and so started the project barehanded. Not such a smart thing to do. About halfway through, I took a break, looked at the welts appearing on my hands and ankles and then drove to Home Depot to get new gloves. Now that bush is just a stump. The thing is that the freeze killed the branches, but it didn't kill the plant. This is not the first time I have taken the bush down to a stump. It will be back and next winter I will share again how much I despise trimming the bougainvillea.

I could remove the plant. My husband and I have discussed removing it many times, but then we would need to put something in its place. Our house is white and the deep greens and reds of the bush look very pretty against it. So, until we decide on what to replace it with, I will continue my annual hatefest with it.

I do trim it mid summer but I wait to hack it way back until Jan-Feb.

I look at myself sometimes in comparison with this bush. See, I have my own thorns. These thorns sometimes make it pretty tough for people to stay close to me. I can appreciate not wanting to get scratched. But this isn't me all of the time. Kinda like my stump out there right now. It doesn't look like it could hurt anything.

I go through times of dropping contact with people in my life. It is never intentional. It never is that I don't want to see them. I just take a break as I work through things in my own little world. I tend to avoid taking care of things until the absolutely demand my attention. Like that bush. I was going to write here that I have lost friends because of this, but that isn't true. It is more that I have drifted apart from some good, amazing people in my life. I have a few very good friends and many others who fit in this drifted away department. Where when we see each other it is friendly and we are glad to see each other, but too much time has passed to quickly regain the deeper connection we once shared.

This is all probably much more common than I give myself credit for. I've really only know a couple of people who have that natural social friend ability. I think it is something we are either wired for or not. I am very thankful to have those close people in my life who understand that when I seem to drift away we really can pick up where we left off.

I'm not sure if this all flows right, or if my connection between friendships and a plant that is overly annoying to trim is fair. The two have simply been on my mind, which generally leads to odd comparisons.