In one of my mother’s earlier attempts at feminizing me she
gave me a spider plant. I took it gladly,
thinking that greenery might help ward off the Seasonal Affective Disorder that
haunts me from October to March each year.
Stab the Frost of Winter’s space in my psyche with mementos of spring
and life and colour and such. It didn’t
work, but that’s a different story.
I wasn’t sure this small, innocent plant would survive in my
care. I’m not a gardener, not a plant
person. Watering plants is the thing I
forget for weeks at a time. I’ve been
surrounded by women in the height of summer, in endless lineups (again, another
story), talking to each other about their backyard gardens, and I just couldn’t
understand. My grandmother spent much of
her later life bent over in her garden, preening, weeding, harvesting, and when
she lost the ability to keep up with it, it became overgrown, fruits and
berries gushing out of everything, rotting, mushing beneath her feet. How do people devote so much time to gardens?
Plants are so high maintenance! And these
people live on a constant ongoing mission to improve and expand them. At what point is enough, enough? How does anyone find time to just sit in the
garden and enjoy the beauty they’ve brought about? It’s not me.
It’s never been me. I asked my
boyfriends to never bring me flowers, and I married the one who never tried. There was good reason to believe a plant in
my care was doomed.
But here I have this spider plant. Every so often it decides to take another run
at life and gets all green and leafy. I
thought I was failing for letting the soil get so dry between waterings, but
the Internet people told me spider plants like to let their soil get
uncomfortably dry. My spider plant, it
seems, is “happy.”
A lot of internet people really take their spider plants
seriously.
We all need hobbies.
My living history with foliage thickened when a friend gave
me an aloe plant as a token of humanitarian aid in my ongoing war with the
kitchen. The kitchen is full of sharp
falling objects, hot metal, grease spitting out of pans, and I learned the hard
way that my skin is categorically not impervious to boiling water. The gifted aloe plant was a much appreciated
gift of mercy, and I have butchered it on several occasions (the war wages on),
and it just keeps growing. I’m no better
at caring for this aloe than I am for the spider plant. This thing keeps its own water. Keeps growing, snaking its tentacles into any
open space it can find.
I don’t quite trust my two plants. They’ve proven that they don’t need me, and
yet out of sympathy for life I try to keep them “happy,” like a forced
prostration to my wicked wives.
I’m not the greatest wife, myself. I must be doing it wrong.
And then these two insidious creatures have gone and created
their own progeny! My one spider plant
is now two, and my one aloe plant has become an overpopulated colony in the
midst of a civil war for livingspace on my windowsill. I used to believe immaculate conception was a
lovely fairy tale giving us a nice Christian reason to brighten up our homes,
drink a lot of sherry, spoil our kids and gain 15 lbs over the darkest month of
the year. Now I’m searching the green
thumb version of mommy-blogs trying to do right by all these plant babies! I’m spending money I don’t have on pots and
soil hoping it’s the right size, the right kind, trying to keep them “happy!” And they just keep breeding!
How long until each surface of my home is spilling leaves
and inviting insects and turning my one-bedroom apartment into a humid pod
overrun by creepy shadow casters? How
long until some well-meaning soul gifts me an orchid that requires actual sentimentality,
company and conversation? How much
longer can I get by without owning a vase, or calling a house sitter every time
I leave it to water my plants?
I’m becoming progressively ensnared by a sadistic kitchen to
my left and a swampy greenhouse to my right!
I guess what I’m saying is: please send help!
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