It's hard to grow things in NYC. But not as hard as one might think. For two summers I have been growing all kinds of plants on the roof of our building. Sugar peas, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries. I don't plant many flowers since I like to grow things I can eat. But I do have one pot filled with tiny little blue flowers. They are the 2nd generation of plants that grew from seeds given to us at a good friend's wedding two years ago.
My husband grew up playing with the groom. There is a funny story about the two of them building a tree house then getting so frightened during a rain storm they could not get down on their own. I imagine my father-in-law, who is a tall and lanky New England man, carrying one of them in each arm across the yard in the rain at the little house in Connecticut
My husband's childhood friend grew up to be a handsome man, and they were never distant. I knew him well before the wedding. We'd go down to Chesea to look at the art galleries (cheaper than MoMA) with this new lady he'd met-- the woman he'd later marry. She was super smart, worked in law. And they seemed like a perfect match.
The seeds we got as wedding favors grew right away, even though I was inattentive hardly watering them at all. I sent a photo of the flowers to the new couple through facebook and they seemed to enjoy it.
At the wedding I ran in to an old middle school friend-- Neither one of use realized that we were both in NYC-- the wedding was a day to rekindle old friendships.
The wedding was inter-faith. And some traditions from each religion were incorporated to make it work just right for both families.
There are a lot of differences, I learned, between Suni and Shia in Indian-American communities. "Would that be the same as the differences in a place like Iraq? " I asked "Oh, no. There are both denominational and international differences." But, that makes sense, I thought, even among Baptists (my own Christian denomination) there are many differences.
Some of the time the controversies in the news just seem so abstract to me. The people get lost in all of the blovating. I may have learned a lot from words and ideas, but I learned the most from sharing photos with friends of tiny little blue flowers.