The strawberry patch on the balcony is only, a metaphor of the bigger problem, and the bigger problem is the mother and daughter-in-law's issues, that needed to get, resolved, because, the typhoons are always going to come, no matter what, and IF you don't deal with the underlying issues of your relationships, then, you're only, fixing the surfaces, and not taking care of what's, deep and underneath all of the upsets that the two of you had, experienced in interacting with one another, translated…
"No one's around! You can throw the package now!", I'd screamed loud to my grandfather on the, third, floor.
"BOOM!", a huge bag of feed tossed down from the balcony of the third floor. The moment of impact, the top loosened, and some soil, came out. I'd looked all around, made sure there were, NO pedestrians approaching, called out again at the balcony on the third floor, "You can toss another! No one's down here!"
Then, bag after bag's worth of feed came raining from the, skies, symbolized the dissolving of the strawberry plantation high up in the air, and this was also the way to resolve the flood of the balcony during the typhoons, most importantly, this signaled at how the fights between the mother and daughter-in-law, is slowly, getting toward, that, ceasefire…………
The strawberry plantation in the skies, was built by my grandmother. Right outside our third-floor balcony, there's, this patch of strawberry plantation. Around the New Year's, my grandmother would often say to us, grandchildren (my cousins), "Come, I'll take you guys to pick some strawberries!"
illustration from UDN.com
There's, that magical quality to the strawberries, that made us kids, feel, very, happy. And, grandma was able to use this simplified means, to get us to be around her, so she could enjoy her time with us; and at the same time, turned this "wanting the strawberries" into a form of, temptation, to get all the grandkids who live in Chiayi, back to, Yunlin. I imagined, that she must felt, that the benefits of this, strawberry plantation in the skies is, more than worth it.
But, there are, the faults to this, strawberry, plantation in mid-air.
As the typhoons came, that balcony that wasn't set up for the planting, would get clogged up.
Either it's the soil that's clogged up the drainage pipes, or the fallen leaves, covered up the filtering nets of the pipelines.
Then, the water slowly accumulates on the third-floor balcony, and, as the water got over the aluminum screen door, then, the indoor started to, flood. Then, the water would, silently, poured down downstairs, silently, and damaging the internal decorations, like how the ceilings of the second floor got too much water damage, started, flaking, off already.
My mother became, quite upset over my grandmother's strawberry plantation, because of the flooding that came with the typhoons, and normally, it's mom who'd had to, handle this, all on her own—my father who's handicapped couldn't help her out, my older sister and I worked away out of town, while, my grandmother, spent half of her time in Chiayi, looking after the younger generations, and couldn't empathize what's happening in Yunlin. Which made the conflicts between my mother and my grandmother, worse, especially on the eves of typhoons, there would be, the storm cells that's come, first, at home.
Later, after the negotiations, my grandmother started, softening down, and, agreed to get the strawberry farm taken down.
"Final pack, Wang, it's, coming DOWN!", grandpa filled up the feed bags with the soil, placed it on the shortened wall on the balcony.
"Okay!", I'd waved to him.
"BANG!", with the finally pack of fertilizer coming down, I'd truly hoped, that before the typhoons came, there couldn't, a whole lot less storms. And naturally, I knew, that the issues of mother-and-daughter-in-law, would not reduce, by a whole lot, because of the strawberry farm out on the balcony being, gone…………
So, the elderly woman was insistent on keeping the strawberry patch she had, because she felt that it's the only way, she could get her own grandchildren to come home to visit more, but, this created the troubles of indoor flooding in the house, which caused the conflicts between her and her daughter-in-law, and, the troubles with the strawberry farm in only on the surfaces of things, there are, the deeper issues of the upsets between the mother and daughter-in-law that needed to get, dug, deeper into, if the storms of this family is to be, completely, dissolved.
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