An odd beginning to the morning.

It was about noon, actually. My schedule is turned upside down. I was asleep on the sofa as my wont. It's extremely uncomfortable, like a campout on uneven ground, but it helps me get up. I have a nice bedroom with its own bath, but I don't like sleeping in there. A place made for sleeping, too much like a crypt. Too quiet, too close to death. I prefer going to sleep like this, boink, and waking up the same way, and getting up the same way. Like awaking on a pile of rocks. Weird, I admit.

But today I woke up from a knock on the door. I'm not expecting anything. "Coming," I get up. Stand up. I'm wobbling. If this is a delivery, they like to go quickly. It's going to take a long time to put on my pants. I have to sit down again to do that. Aim my legs into the holes. Button it up. All this takes time. What the heck. I'll answer the door in my underwear. After all, they're calling on me, not me setting anyone up for a shock.

Here's where my body dysmorphia kicks in. I honestly think my black boxer shorts make me look hot.

I actually look like an unshaven scraggly old pig.

I answer the door in my underwear. A sharply dressed bald black man slightly shorter and a good deal heavier than myself is standing there. "Remember who I am?"

I hate these identifying pop quizzes.

I look more closely. Decades ago I would have faked knowing, but I've learned since then it's a lot easier being honest. "No."

I risk admitting my not being able to remember people and
I risk disappointing someone for not being remembered.
But he did spring this pop quiz on someone he just woke up.

"I'm the guy upstairs whose door you knocked on and handed a bag of full of bulbs. I have questions about those bulbs. When will they bloom? I've been watering them but nothing is happening. They really are something. They really are beautiful. I want them to come back."

I told him what I knew about the caladium bulbs. They're probably frozen and won't bloom. There is supposed to be a way to dig them up, keep them moist at mid-cold temperature, warmer than a refrigerator but colder than room temperature. Let them have their hibernation. Then replant them. I tried twice and failed. One year they dried out. The other year in dirt, they dissolved. They're inexpensive so I just buy new ones each year. With new ones, nothing will happen until it's warm overnight for a few weeks straight. It takes a few weeks for them to settle into their dirt. Everyone always gets impatient because they don't even start showing life until summer. They are tropical plants.

He asked more questions than can be answered standing there at the door. And I wanted to give him some morning glory seeds collected last year. To show him the box of collected seeds and to show him how my terrace looks with just pots of dirt. I invited him in.

I'm a mess. My apartment is a mess. I'm experimenting with cake and all that stuff is left out on the counters and work surface.  My clothes are draped over the furniture, a glass and a plate are on the floor. Unopened boxes are stacked, groceries are not all put away in the pantry. The whole places looks sloppy and needs a dusting. I am a near naked just woken mess. But I don't care. I take him out to the balcony.

This must have been a sight, had we been seen, and all the other balconies face, as inside a U, so it's likely somebody saw us. Me in my underwear on the bench, he smarty dressed speaking to me with ease. We conversed out there for a long time.

He confessed that last year he was inside an apartment nearby at a higher level with Deena, both looking down into my terrace, he asked Deena, how does he have a jungle on his balcony? What is that guy doing down there? What plants are he using? What is his secret?  He said to me, "I'm copying you. I need you to tell me what plants you had last year."

I told him what little I know. He's moved to another apartment. Now he has the single best apartment for this sort of thing. I've watched the movement of sunlight and his apartment is the best one. He has greater opportunity than anyone else living here. Me saying that pleased him. He's exited to try a bunch of new things. I gave him a handful of morning glory seeds and intact dry seed pod. He held them clasped in his hand for the rest of our conversation. "This is beautiful. You have a very good view."

"Yeah. It's nice. As you can see, your balcony is drenched in light while mine is still in shadow. That's why the choice of plants available for me to pick is smaller than yours."

I told him about the guy that I knew for decades but only tangentially. His funeral reception was the first time I went to his house. His jungle-like gardening in his shaded front yard, and his botanic garden in pots along two fences that ran his long narrow back yard, combined flowers, foliage plants, vegetables and herbs, each pot a separate unique combination that goes upward in combination, outward in combination, and downward in combination, absolutely everything available in Colorado crammed into pots, was inspiring. His Pinterest page was endless and gave clues to his values, included gardening books by a particular author who mixed things in pots. So I read all of her books. Each one specific to vegetables, or flowers, or plants for their foliage, they all basically said the same thing. Her books are very repeat-y. But that drilled in her basic idea, chiefly, not giving up just because you kill tens of thousand of plants by not knowing.

We enjoyed each other's company a lot. But I must admit the whole thing was weird to an extreme and he had me vulnerable, my being nearly naked, the place being a mess, while he is crisply dressed and compulsively fastidious. The weather was gorgeous, the temperature perfect, comfortable in the shade, I could have stayed out there a lot longer, but I was at risk of being labeled a kook. The man who sits outside on his bench in his underwear. Not a good image.

But it does overcome the opposite image of the unapproachable white guy.

You never know what people are thinking about you. This guy overcame whatever preexisting barriers and approached me. Probably because I boldly did that with him last year. But I went up there and imposed a bag of bulbs on him. He must have thought me a bit weird. But then the bulbs grew magnificently. And he saw what I managed myself, and he wants more.

See what this is? Connecting with strangers through gardening. Making breakthroughs that are otherwise more difficult, if not impossible. Creating a want and then meeting it. Answering the door in one's underwear.