January 18, 2021

My dearest,

Our garden is a paradise.

Full of palm-like cycads and coconut trees, their branches higher than houses. Flowering bushes, growing by design and by nature’s hands. There are no weeds here; everything has its purpose, everything contributes to our garden’s beauty.

And to the life of our garden.

For we are not the only ones here: there are plantain squirrels with their bushy tails; pink-necked green pigeons, always flying in loving pairs; solitary butterflies darting this way and that until they land, settle and are joined by their lovers…

You would turn left when you reach the bottom of our stairs and enter our garden. You would pass beneath the first coconut tree where you hear the klick! klick! of squirrels hunting for food. A flash of red as they leap from branch to branch, chirping away to announce their departure and arrival.

In the next tree, the romance between two pigeons continue unabated; they feed, they move closer to each other, left wing embracing right.

I would turn right, past the cove of abandoned bicycles, each leaning against the next for succour, for companionship. I turn again at the swings where I would do pull-ups sometimes and I jog a figure 8, the thicket of Monstera deliciosa on my left.

The Swiss cheese plant, these are also called, their fenestrate leaves perforated pages in the story of our little Eden.

You turn left again at the spider lilies – you love their lemony scent – and bank sharply at the tree trunk where a rambling bush of dok anchan grows at its base. The blue petals a reminder of how we made a sapphire cordial from butterfly pea flowers and where we first tasted it, in a café in Thonglor, all those years ago.

We are always in cafés, even when there are miles between us; we show each other what we have ordered, we describe the flavour notes of our coffees, we discuss where to go next.

Later, I pass by the same bush, its creeping vines encircling the tree, and observe a vermilion hibiscus in full bloom. A sun, warming me up the way you would, if you were here.

This is months later and you’re back in Bangkok and I am here, watching over our home, walking in our garden, turning right where you would turn left.

You would tell me that this hibiscus isn’t a bunga raya, that that is a specific species. You’re right, of course. That’s the Hibiscus rosa-sinensis, the China rose, always a brilliant red. You are the wisest person I know.

A brilliant red, and that’s your favourite colour come every Lunar New Year. The Year of the Metal Ox is almost upon us and this year we won’t be tossing slivers of raw fish together.

It’s okay. There will be more years. We exchanged our vows six years ago and we found each other long before that.

There will be more years, good years. The best years of our lives.

You investigate cobwebs and discover whether the spiders have had a good meal. I help you look. You show me where the tiniest black praying mantis waits for its prey, ferocious when it realises we have uncovered its hiding place.

We look for our boys Krist and Singto – the pair of lime butterflies that dance amongst the crane-like spikes of the orange birds-of-paradise. (A third, who sometimes appear, but rests on a separate blossom always, we call Ohm.)

Their hindwings have fiery spots framed in black, ochre ringed with coal. These mirror the umber hue of the flowers, the tangerine and the peach.

A burning passion.

Otherwise their wings are splotches of white against black – for they are also known as chequered swallowtails – like broken windows. They are fairy tales, they are myths.

Would it surprise you to learn that lime butterflies feed on citrus trees such as limes – hence their name – and not here? (Perhaps your wisdom has rubbed off on me after all these years.)

The birds-of-paradise is Krist and Singto’s own garden within our garden. This is not where they mate but where they make love. This is where they dance and declare their love for each other.

You turn left and take photographs of the birds and the butterflies, the flowers and the ferns. I turn right and run, not away but towards you, as we meet back where we start. We walk together and we head home together.

Our garden will be waiting for us tomorrow when we return. We can always return, we always will.

Yours, ever and always.