{"id":155,"date":"2017-10-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"an-ode-to-an-old-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/29\/an-ode-to-an-old-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ode to an Old Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Pretty was an incongruous term<br \/>\nto describe the garden. <br \/>\nThere was no organised effort<br \/>\nor orderly bloom of flowers.<br \/>\nNo wanderer would spare it <br \/>\na second glance.<br \/>\nThe butterflies and beetles had<br \/>\nlong bored of its unkemptness.<br \/>\nBetween the overgrown undergrowth<br \/>\nand the undergrown overgrowth,<br \/>\nthe dragonflies, though,<br \/>\nloved to play hide and seek<br \/>\nto the occasional birdsong.<br \/>\nAnd in the midst of the green trees,<br \/>\nand the yellow dodders,<br \/>\nthe wild and tame flowers bloomed,<br \/>\nrandomly &#8211; <br \/>\nviolets, yellows, pinks, reds,<br \/>\nless today, more tomorrow,<br \/>\nwhenever they pleased,<br \/>\nhowever they pleased.<\/p>\n<p>This garden has stood around<br \/>\nfor as long as one could remember.<br \/>\nThe new gardens <br \/>\nwere easier to maintain-<br \/>\nwell decorated and colourful,<br \/>\nwith all the bees and the buzz, <br \/>\nno moss, no weed, <br \/>\nno jarred, lightning struck tree, <br \/>\nnot too much work.<br \/>\nAnd when the owner got bored<br \/>\nthe new garden was sold<br \/>\nto someone else, who started afresh. <\/p>\n<p>It was hard to believe that <br \/>\nthe old garden, too, had been new <br \/>\nonce upon a time.<br \/>\nThat rubble of stones in the middle<br \/>\nwas once a glorious marble fountain<br \/>\ncentred among the yellow<br \/>\nrosebushes, pruned to perfection.<br \/>\nNeat rows of almond and magnolia<br \/>\nled to silver birch and maple,<br \/>\nwhich tried to hide in vain.<br \/>\nThe gardener&#8217;s efficiency<br \/>\nand the owner&#8217;s appreciation<br \/>\nlasted for as long as they did. <br \/>\nBut fondness and pride prevented them<br \/>\nfrom handing it over<br \/>\nto someone else.<br \/>\nSo, long after they&#8217;d withered,<br \/>\nlike leaves, lives and seasons, <br \/>\nthe old garden remained<br \/>\nthe way it was.<br \/>\nAlways.<br \/>\nMagnificent.<br \/>\nWild serenity in the serene wilderness.<br \/>\nPretty never was a congruous term<br \/>\nto describe the garden.<\/p>\n<p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pretty was an incongruous term  to describe the garden.   There was no organised effort  or orderly bloom of flowers.  No wanderer would spare it   a second glance.  The butterflies and beetles had  long bored of its unkemptness.  Between the overgro&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ajulea.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}