frustration teaches lessons

4.14.2009

The past few weeks, I've been seeing the start of mango season all around me. It started with the flowers. Any time I passed a mango tree, my eyes were immediately drawn to the sprinkling of flowers that frosted the entire canopy. I remember feeling a tinge of excitement at the thought of eating mangos everyday. Then as the flowers fell away, little green buds the size of grocery store gum balls became visible. The pregnancy of the trees becoming known to all. Those little green babies have been growing bigger and bigger and some have even begun to change color to the light orange and deep red that I love so much. As I walk through the markets, I even see the first fruits being sold from atop old wooden tables. Though I have been eagerly awaiting my first mango of the season, I vowed to start the season off with the perfect mango. This means passing up several opportunities to eat mangos. But for good reason, they aren't perfect yet. Today my waiting ended and the mango WASN'T perfect. But again, for good reason.....

I'm not sure why, but today I awoke in a muddied mood. I haven't had much motivation to get work done lately. I think it's because I can't stop thinking about my June vacation. I've been here over a year and I'm hitting a wall. I really feel the need to get out of here. To remember America. To look into the eyes of my family. To laugh with my friends. It doesn't help that work has been frustrating me lately. All of these things added up made it quite difficult to wake up. Regardless, I pulled myself out of bed and actually made it out of the house by 7am. I walked to where I catch an old, beat up car to the hospital and I didn't even have to throw elbows for a spot. I walked through the Psych ward and muttered half-hearted greetings before finally entering in the garden. I really was happy to see Mboop watering and we exchanged greetings. We talked about the garden and decided to spray some pesticide to deal with a recent insect attack. I filled the pump and started in a corner next to a carasol tree. Not five minutes into the spraying, the damn pump broke. The worse part is, it didn't completely break, no, it broke so that it could still be used.....painfully slow. Knowing how crucial it was to spray, I continued using the broken pump. Then about every minute or so it would stop working for a bit....then start again. Frustration began boiling inside until finally it spilled out in a fit of laughter. Laughter like a mad scientist. I don't know why. I gripped the pump tightly with every intention of smashing it against the wall. I restrained myself. Maybe because Mboop was looking at me like I was really crazy.

"The pump keeps breaking." I explained, wiping the frustration from my eyes. Perhaps Mboop could sense that something other than the pump was bother me, because shortly after I heard him call my name. He was standing there with a bucket of small mangoes he had just pulled from the tree.

"Come eat breakfast." he said. I gladly set the pump down and joined him for a mango feast. As I said, the mangoes weren't perfect, but they were needed. My muddied mood felt the heaviness of frustration lift and contentment settled into its place. As I sat squatted on the ground with a mango in hand, I realized I had it all wrong. You don't wait for the perfect mango to start the season off, you wait for the perfect moment; and I found my perfect moment.