The Birds of Fortuity, Cabbages and Kings

“When life gives you lemons, sell them and buy a pineapple.” **

The little Birds of Fortuity which flutter always around in this enchanted life, brought me the key piece to transform a strange encounter “You look like a pineapple in a fruit bowl” into a dazzling new ragbag apron* which celebrates the bold and the bright and maybe also the somewhat spikey condition of being a pineapple.

Whilst browsing in a thrift store just after that fruity encounter, (my initial negative response is mentioned in this blog post) I found a pile of bright white cotton kitchen towels with jokey or motivational sayings on them. Normally, in my search for household linens to upcycle, I would bypass these as not being my thing, word addicted though I am, BUT one was about being a pineapple. “See. We are always with you,” whispered the Birds Of Fortuity.

The bright white of the cloth was a bit jarring, but I knew I had a stash of pineapple block prints sitting on a table in my studio back at the shala, waiting (I thought) to be turned into little pouches with beading and embroidery, maybe. Or apron pockets.

The bottom ruffle, waist ties and neck edging are repurposed from a tropical print dress, a ragbag remnant from those Hawaiian times, over ten years ago now.

Twenty years before that tropical island interlude, I found an Eldorado (of sorts) just up the road from the world’s biggest pineapple.

This 56 foot three story Big Pineapple was completed around 1990/91 on Summerhill, a pineapple farm and major agricultural research center in Bathurst, where pineapples are the major cash crop. Almost all of South Africa’s pineapples are produced in this part of the country and one morning a few months ago, when meeting with some of the family diaspora, we watched, from a Bathurst corner coffee shop, as enormous trucks loaded with pineapples trundled by making the right angled turn. It must have been pineapple harvest season. The smell was tropical island heavenly albeit with a faint base note of axel grease and exhaust fumes.

The Big Pineapple structure apparently won a South African tourism award in 1991. Take that Sunshine Coast, Australia, which boasts the second biggest pineapple (closed last I heard) but which served as the inspiration for this one.

Sometimes it’s probably okay to stand tall and wear a crown. As long as you are a pineapple not a king, though, in a strange coincidence (Birds of Fortuity enough now!) it bears remembering that that Eldorado (pictured above) WAS on Kings Road in Bathurst. The little Summerhill developed (bioengineered isn’t always a dirty word) hand sized pineapples which I was buying when I was in the East Cape a few months ago were very very tasty and very convenient for a solo traveler. I’ve not encountered them anywhere in the USA.

This week’s pineapple apron confection features spikey neon green batik pineapple crown inspired decorative trim in various places.

Maybe the chance street commentator last month in Silver City was correct and my grumpiness was thin skinned and out of place. Though I often feel like a cabbage, I’ve probably always been a pineapple.

Even sometimes wearing a crown. However, I suspect I’m one of the tart ones. Not so sweet inside.

Thank you Milan Kundera for introducing the Birds of Fortuity into this enchanted life and thank you Birds of Fortuity for bringing a pineapple epiphany (of sorts) or at least a pineapple project. It’s a thing to do with a wild and precious life. For which I am truly grateful.

A sunbird nest on the porch of Eldorado, King Street, Bathurst, South Africa circa 1999

**A random unattributed quotation found on the internet.

*I’m working (way too slowly) on a new range of Ragbag Aprons, mostly inspired by or with bizarre/bazaar links to my sojourn in the East Cape both way back then in the Before Time, and in March/April of this year.

Once I have a decent number made up, they will be released to flutter, as little Birds of Fortuity, around my farmers market booth, ready to go home with somebody new. Until that happens, if you can’t live without what you see here, get hold of me. We can make a plan.

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