Botany of Desire

A year later, and I still wonder: why the heck do I want what I want?  Why am I making the choices that I'm making?

I suppose this could be the segue into a contemplative examination of my life, but let's just not.  I avoid that kind of self-reflexive, possibly positive life changing activity like the plague.  I mean, let's consider it from this angle: Doesn't the constant desire to improve oneself reflect rather a deep, self-loathing?  Aren't I good enough RIGHT NOW?

Anyway, back to plants.  So the weirder the better.  My heart truly goes out to the freaky.  And while this is nowhere near the freak of, say, a Voodoo Lily or its cousin the Corpse - I present Scadoxus multiflorus:

Like someone made a flower out of Pop Rocks hitting fizzy soda.

The photo is from commons.wikimedia.  I'd show you mine, but I don't know any of you that well.  Again, anyway, back to plants.  I love this plant because my grandmother used to have it in her garden in Kalihi.  It'd come and go as it is wont to do - popping up, blooming its exploding head off, then dying back.  Of course, no internet back then, so who knew that the silly thing died back to the ground, then hibernated?  So the fact that its blooming coincided with my grandmother having dreams about dead people was seriously freaking cool.  Like dead people she knew (or people would were soon going to die), not, you know, Abraham Lincoln. 

So do I like it on its own merit?  It is toxic.  But so are most plants, and it's not like I plan on eating it - 'cause, well, I hate salad anyway.  Also, it doesn't bloom all the time, and then it dies and goes underground like a bear during winter or cosplayers between comic cons (at least in public).

Do I love it for itself and its charms, or is the plant pulling at my heart because I miss my "I see dead people" grandma?  Or am I just trying to be cooler than all y'all because I bet you don't have it in your yard?