Mango Season

The tree was here long before us. It was just a tree, it is almost jarring to say it out loud, in our garden. Neither of us had ever really had a garden. A balcony – a few wonky herbs and some sunflowers between us. But this tree was slightly lopsided with oversized witches’ hands for leaves. Nestled somewhere between the galangal and the lime, it was unassuming enough not to really register as anything of significance. Overshadowed by the raining tree, it had nothing to prove. For weeks, maybe months, we didn’t think about it at all. It was just part of the backdrop. Part of this new place we had yet to know.

It’s been a few days since we got here, my wife has gone to work and I don’t know what do to really. You look comfortable here, I’d like to live in the moment. I am so very bad at it, I am so scared I will fail here.

If I take care of you that is one think I can do here and not fail. Keep you alive, then learn how to be here. Like you.

Everything is different but everything is the same. Fear has ruled my life. You feel like someone safe to say this to. Strong and silent type.

River embraced it first. Not the tree exactly but what it might become. They watered it. Spoke to it like it made sense to include it in the day. Soon I started talking to the garden too. The two of us chatting to the pots and shrubs we had planted, we laughed at ourselves, but carried on doing it anyway. Me in the morning before school. A moment of solace before the fray. And River in the evening as they watered the ground.

You’ve grown so much in the rainy season, and I get excited every time I see new buds. I’m working now, it has been hard, really hard, there is a man there (as there is always a man) that takes and takes and takes up all of the room and all of the air and all of the energy. They call him prickly, I call him abusive. The pressure is immense.

You only take what you need though, and my life here with my wife is unbelievable. I think I am learning how to be here, to be present. You can see how we are growing both separately and apart. It is so cool.

The first signs were easy to miss. Miniature green beads, barely there. You could look them straight in the eye and still not really see them. Google Lens told River they were mangoes. I was dubious. They see what can be. I see mostly what is. And what was, was nothing special. I remember holding one between my fingers. Hard like a pea. It didn’t feel like fruit but River was adamant. I guess I believed them because I continued chatting to the inconspicuous nodules.

Weeks passed. Then more. I don’t know how long it took. Between work and navigating our new life, it’s easy to lose track of the clock. The tree and whatever it may yield wasn’t really on my priority list.

But still we kept checking, without ever saying we were checking. Gradually, the beads became something more tangible.

Then, just like that, they changed. This time it wasn’t gradual in the way you expect growth to be. One day they were not ready. The next, they were something else entirely. What had been green deepened, softened, warmed into verdant sunlight.

You have been hiding something my friend, or rather our ignorance is catching up with us. Mangoes. How magical.

Work is still hard, but you should see the art these kids are making. It’s wonderful.

You know, it has been one difficult thing after another for us since we got here, we are exhausted and would be crying mercy if not for you and the rest of garden. Soon you will give us fruit, and we are looking forward to the brief time of everything tastes like mango.

And us. Isn’t it cool how every hard thing makes us stronger?

We picked the first one.

Just one.

It wasn’t a decision so much as rite of passage. It was time, but we both hesitated before taking it from the branch as if it still belonged more to the tree than to us.

Inside, we clamoured to cut it open.

The colour was like sunset. Bright and filled with light. Neon almost. Nothing like the ones we had bought in shops before. All perfect droplets, slices neat and predictable. This was softer. Messier. The knife slipped through easily and juice spilled onto the wooden chopping board.

We didn’t wait to plate it. We just ate it from the board. Sticky yellow juice ran down our hands and wrists. Gloopy, golden, impossible to contain. We learned that day, that there is no polite way to eat a freshly picked mango. There was no neat version of this moment and we didn’t care. It tasted so new. Sure, it was still mango. Sweet, soft, familiar but the sweetness was kinder.

The world is on fire but we just had some of your fruit and the absurdity melts away while we devour the sweet beauty you’ve offered us.

I have become stronger here.

I have spent more time afraid in the last seven months than I ever have in my life, but afraid and doing it anyway is different.

That fear that I felt about existing has melted away, replaced by fear for my family and friends still in America. You don’t know anything about America. You are lucky.

I am so happy. Despite the immense pressure. We have created a whimsical life with a garden, good food and hard work and lots of laughter.

My wife works so hard, I am so proud to even know her let alone be her partner. You see that right? How enchanting she is when she talks to the birds and the shrews. I am sure your conversations with her are incredibly enlightening.

There was magic in that flesh. Some incantation had been spoken and the universe seemed to shift. We danced in the living room. Mango between our teeth.

Soon, we started picking more.

Not all at once. Just enough. A few at a time, carried carefully, like precious cargo. And then, without deciding to, we began giving them away. To neighbours. To our kind village security. To the cleaners at work. People who had gone out of their way to help us figure things out when we first arrived. To those who had made space for us before we knew how to take it.

Now it’s become something we just do. Each new crop — mangoes, limes, papaya — gets passed on. We take some for ourselves and then offer them out. Sometimes as mango chutney, or a key lime pie, and sometimes just as fruit. A small gift. Nothing formal. No expectations of reciprocation.

We picked your last fruit today, happy Songkran, and we will welcome the rain back soon. I can’t wait for the rain to come back.

It’s the kind of heat that sticks to your insides and twists them up, but you create shade for us and for the critters. I found a new toad today while I watered your brothers and sisters.

Did you see our lemon tree has one lemon on it? How exciting. Our vegetables are sprouting, ready for rainy season.

Thank you for giving us your fruit. We will take care of you so next year there will be more.

Stay kind

I love you, I love our life here.

And maybe that’s the part that stayed. Not the tree. Not even the fruit really.  It was never about the mangoes at all.

Maybe it’s a little bit about mangoes though.