A few months ago, just to try, I put a petai seed right smack in the middle of this banana clump. The seed sprouted at the beginning of our annual windy dry season, not the easiest of beginnings. This is what our seedling looks like today amongst the banana stems. Easily the most handsome out of those from the same pod. Do you see competition and smothering, or nurturance and sheltering? Either way, nature is a mirror. She often reflects how we view the world and ourselves.

Unlike his grafted peers sold at nurseries, this seedling is genetically unique. One of a kind, like you and me. And like you and me, but unlike his banana neighhours, his parents had sex to bring him into existence. Tree sex.

The seed came from a petai tree belonging to my neighbour’s father. Everytime I see this sapling I am reminded of his monologues and babblings. If against all odds this sapling comes to reproductive age, I would get to climb him to harvest and savour his pungent seeds, all of which would necessarily be a product of tree sex. In this pungentness I would be reminded of the old man that fed me and my family. A relationship weaving some humans, two pods of seeds, a tree, and land together would have been added to the tapestry of our world.

So here we have a tiny petai sapling that is unique and relational. And in him we find an antidote to a world plunging headfirst into the darkness of homogeneity, commodification, and cheapness. It would no longer be “some petai seeds purchased from Econsave”, but rather, “the petai seeds from the tree planted the time my third child was born when Vinn’s father passed me two overripened pods from his tree and now cooked by my wife.”

So, plant seeds given by friends. Or give them seeds, but perhaps sweet fragrant ones.