AGES AND STAGES

by Mocco Wollert

FROM my office window, I look on to a sea of bright yellow flowers. They lift my heart and make me feel happy.

My happiness becomes clouded when the gardener in my retirement village says, “Ah those, they are just weeds, and a real nuisance.”

Not being a gardener or very knowledgeable about plants, I was intrigued enough to look up the name for those amazing yellow blooms – Coreopsis. What a wonderful scientific name for magnificent yellow flowers but what would make them a weed?

I had to find out more. The dictionary describes a weed as “an unwelcome, wild-type, not- cultivated plant that deprives other plants of space and food.” What if the good plants deprive the weeds of space and food? Are weeds an abomination put on earth by the creator?

The word “weed” comes from the old English, meaning garment. Hence, the widows’ weeds were black garments worn after a death in the Victorian era. So where is the connection between garment and pesky plant?

I think that a weed is in the eye of a beholder.

Maybe we should make a different distinction and nominate plants differently: call them “good plants” or “nuisance plants” or “dangerous plants” like the spiky cactus that takes over vast areas remorselessly like a conquering army.

Just as racists are those who deride people from different backgrounds, maybe we need plantists for those who denigrate certain plants as weeds.

Have you ever sung to a plant, played music for a flower bush? I am convinced, and I am not the only one, that they have feelings.

Calling them weeds to their faces must make them very unhappy. Maybe it is not dew we find on their surface in the early morning but plant-tears.

By now, probably all the gardeners are up in arms. Don’t worry, the man with the big beard on the ABC will explain it all and put your minds at rest.

He will probably also have the answer to my questions:

If a tomato plant should suddenly grow in the middle of my finely manicured lawn and produce glorious red fruit, would it still be called a weed? After all it takes up space and deprives my grass of food.

What about the delicate little white mushrooms that appear in the lawn from time to time, are they weeds too? If so, I love weeds!

I have the suspicion that at times, I might be a bit of a weed in the garden of society, staying too long until I am nuisance, taking over when I should probably be quiet and demure.

Hopefully, sometimes I can be like the weed Coreopsis and give people pleasure and happiness. Maybe the weeds in the garden of your life have brought you, and still give you, joy and comfort.

May you nourish your flowers and love your weeds.

by Cheryl Lockwood

THE first time I cut my husband’s hair was early on in our marriage. I insisted that I could not do haircuts. He insisted that he only needed a trim and I could certainly do it. Close to tears, I suggested a barber. He handed me the clippers.

My Mum always said, as she snipped my brother’s curly locks, that wavy hair was more forgiving of hand to scissor error. The hair would bounce back and the natural swirl would hide imperfections.

My sister and I, with our dead-straight hair, were not so lucky. Photos show zigzag fringes, victims of Mum’s method of cutting along a line of sticky tape.

I don’t think she allowed for the width

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of the tape as she mostly cut above it, leaving us with very exposed foreheads.

Another brother got the Tupperware bowl guide for his haircuts, often wearing the bowl to school as it was less embarrassing than his hairstyle, or so he says. She cut Dad’s hair for many years, and he never complained.

With four kids, he was probably willing to risk it for the money saved.

Both my husband and I survived that first haircut attempt and many more since.

I only trimmed my children’s hair occasionally, in case I had inherited Mum’s skills. Hubby likes his hair on the shorter side, so will often ask for a trim between barber visits.

The last time this happened, it had been a busy day, so it was in fading light that we headed to the back verandah. He had the clippers plugged in and ready to go.

Without much thought, I flicked them on and began ploughing up the side of his head. He flinched at the roughness, but didn’t say anything. I was surprised at how much hair came off.

It was thicker than I thought and really did need that trim. Alarm bells should have rung. I was part way around my lap of the skull, when I noticed there was no comb attachment on the clippers!

I’d normally start with a No.3 comb, but in my haste had not attached one at all. In horror, I stopped abruptly.

“What’s wrong?” came the slightly

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nervous query. “Um … sorry,” was all I could say. There was not a lot I could do, but to keep trimming and try for some sort of symmetry. Luckily, he is not a vain man.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “I can’t see the back anyway.”

He wouldn’t need to, the carnage spread to the sides. It was even worse than my first effort all those years ago.

Definitely worse. I had turned him into Forrest Gump! He offered to cut my hair the following day. I’m not sure if that was an offer or a threat.

I had a sudden flashback to the late ’80s, when I sported a haircut that bordered on a mullet. Not a great choice, but it did grow back.

For his sake, I hope that there really is only two weeks between a good and a bad haircut. In the meantime, I’ll refrain from yelling, “Run, Forrest, run!” when I pass him in the hallway.

Happy Father’s Day and may your good haircuts outweigh the bad!

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