Banana Bonsai

I must have seen close to a million banana trees in my lifetime but none as small as what BoyP (my former colleague and friend) has in his beautiful garden. It’s two feet tall and I have wondered how to eat its fruits—if ever it would bear some.

BoyP, an outdoor-and-travel-loving person, retired much too early from being one of the top honchos in the ad industry.  He said he wants to have time to freely do what he wants to do at his own pace. 

He is doing it now—with a passion, or more graphically, with a vengeance. He grows bonzai, and again, more graphically, he’s a bonsai nut.

(Bonsai is an Asian art form that uses growing techniques to produce small trees in containers that mimic the scale of full-size trees. Bonsai nuts say it symbolizes peace, harmony and balance, demonstrating the dogged fight of a tree against the elements to create a miniature replica; it teaches us to remove clutter from our lives.)

BoyP’s bonsai collection (hundreds of them), particularly his banana bonsai, illustrate for me what he wants to do with his days—declutter and concentrate only on what’s important.

I can never grow bonsai, much less grow anything, but decluttering charms me and it’s what I have been trying to do, in my own way, since I left the workplace in the year 2000. I have not been completely successful—yet. But grace will soon show me how to totally embrace the simple life:

“Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before.” 1 Thessalonians 4:11 (NLT)