Does the world make much sense to you? If it does, even in a small way, you are doing much better than me. Much of what I know about the state of the world I learn from podcasts as I walk my dog along the quiet, meandering tracks of our beautiful Andalusian campo. Listening to the news keeps me broadly in the loop, but it is hardly cheerful. I may be surrounded by peaceful landscapes, but my headphones connect me to the woes of distant parts of the world. Even nature struggles to help at times. A little owl may be peering down at me from a telegraph wire as news comes in of the latest madness from Washington, or some random cruelty meted out to innocents far away.
Early on Sunday morning, while the dog and I were out, I was immersed in an analysis of the nefarious actions of powerful people on the far right and their enablers. I was rescued from such grim matters by, of all things, a large flower. It was huge, and it seemed almost to glow in the morning sunshine. It is hard to imagine such a giant flower appearing overnight, but it was not in the market for daytime insects. Its customers are moths and bats.
The dragon fruit flower is produced by a climbing cactus that has to keep a close eye on how much water it holds on to. When the night ends and its pollinators are tucked away having a bit of shut-eye, the plant presumably stops investing in flowers that could lose water, and they promptly wither. Quite by accident, I came across the flower while it was fully open, with a honeybee inside it. By mid-morning it would begin to close, the petals turning inwards and becoming limp and translucent.
If it was successfully pollinated, the one-night flower will turn into a fruit. In a few days I will make sure the dog and I walk the same path again, to see whether the base of the flower has begun to swell, a signal that a fruit is on its way. Fingers crossed that it has, and if so we can keep visiting over the coming weeks to watch the fruit develop and, at the same time, keep some of the worries of the world at bay.
