Bay Tree Chats

Do you know what area of teen movies needs to be explored? Girls feeling like they’re unattractive. Someone needs to, like…make a movie about a girl who’s unpopular. Maybe she has a quirky friend of uncertain ethnicity, and they sit at a table by themselves during lunchtimes because they’re unpopular. Maybe there’s also a male nerd in their group. He could be, like…a gardener. Yeah, that works.

Also, there’s an unkind girl, and at one point the main character takes off her glasses and becomes talented and beautiful

These are the profound thoughts that come to my head while I’m trimming magnolia little gem as part of my community service. Maybe I’m not used to gardening, or maybe it’s genuinely just not the activity for me, but I’m trimming these white flowers that they call ‘gems’ and my mind wanders. It wanders hard. So much so that I’ve managed to straight up slice through several of the flower stems already. I think my community support officer is now pretty close to assigning me to somewhere else, perhaps a place where the tulips and magnolia little gems are safe from my daydreaming wrath. 

My mind is a ceaseless traveller…it does not stop. It never stops, always sailing, sailing, jumping, twisting, turning, twirling, twirling towards victory! With my eyes, I see the…you know, whatever plant it is. Yesterday I was trimming a bay tree, the day before that we were watering the botanical gardens with recycled sewage water, so there was a huge variety of plants. I see them, but in my mind, I’m frolicking in amongst the clouds, where the dragon-unicorns live. Sometimes the dragon-unicorns go to war, and I’m not exactly into that, so I’m back in my favourite daydream where I’m a famous and beloved teen movie writer, renowned for my ability to tell stories that no one else has before.

Sometimes a giant walking bay tree invades my daydream and is all like “hey, stop daydreaming, you’re supposed to be trimming me!”

Totally ruining my fun, bay tree. I’m not impressed.

-Leah