When I was in my late teens, my Dad met another woman that lived with him, twice as many years as with my mother. In the beginning, I found them a little alike, with similar names and both wearing blonde, short hair. But, A-M, bore herself with a little more pizazz, and was a little more independant, than my mother. In fact, I was glad that she was tougher, and thus endured living with my father and being able to travel with him, better for me to see and learn. She had two daughters, a couple of years older than me. One an artist, the other a photographer, married for many years to an American journalist, and living there. Both loving horses, like I also did. Recently however, I found out that AnnMarie passed away, while I was in Portugal 2020.
She made good dishes, especially a lemon-marengue pie, and was extremely good at taking care of plants and gardening. She imported some bamboo from China, that she enabled to grow in their yard in the south of Sweden, and as a housewarming gift in my early 20's, she gave me an offshoot of her big banana plant, that she had in a pot inside their house, which also gave bananas a couple of times. My banana-plant, accompanied me for decades. It was also banana leaves, that I was once gifted through a conversation with an older woman in Florida on Myspace, who sent me some, to make my first grass-skirt with for dancing Hula. And of course, I got to see wild banana trees grow in both Hawaii and Portugal. Imagine, what I grew! I looked to buy a new banana-plant, now that I've moved into a new apartment, but couldn't find one. Instead, however, I have seen that one of my other plants also has grown offsprings, so I've decided to see if I can plant that one.
Where did I get my knowledge of growing greens? Not from my own mother, but from Ann-Marie.
Photo from Wikipedia.
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