nature, nurture

It’s November, and I’m twenty five now.

The New England air is biting. It’s been burning my ears and finding my hands in my pockets.

Brown’s the current palette out here as well.

The porchstep pumpkins are melting and the neighbors’ chrysanthemums have degraded to straw and crinkled buds. 

I stare those things down. I remember when I bought my mums from Trader Joe’s. Lyndsey forgot to water them while I was out of town and they died within a couple of weeks.

I’ve been thinking about them. Did you know they’re native to Asia? 

Out there, they can live year round.

In Boston, they’re treated like “annuals,” a euphemism for “we’ve brought them to winters they haven’t evolved to withstand, so they eat it and we buy new ones next time.”

Some are hardy enough to handle the snow. Some plants like sunflowers exist purely to seed, and then they self-destruct. But through a manmade fate, most of our “annuals” get to look pretty for one season. 

I got a new job, and the winter isn’t so cold now.

I’m officially a software saleswoman. Have you ever heard of intranet?

Point me to your C-suite and I’ll make sure they will.

Weekdays these days are eight hours of phone dialling and Zoom meetings. They’re also genuine laughter and sticky note doodles and group runs to the coffee shop nearby.

Then I do my little T commute home, I put down my phone, and I start to garden. 

Remember that Facebook Marketplace wizard I met awhile ago? The one lacking pants? Well, the monstera I bought from her is still kicking, as are about twenty other houseplants I’ve collected since then.

I don’t know how to convey how therapeutic it is to shove my hands in a 50/50 mix of dirt and bark chips, and I could nerd out for hours about my alocasias, hoyas, or new orchids. 

I think my favorite thing about it is the experimentation and care that goes into it all. After awhile, you can sort of speak their language- what it means when their leaves go darker green, when their stems start stretching.

There’s also the fact that the majority of them would be annuals in Boston. I turn on my grow lights every day and I know that if I didn’t, no one would.

Nurturing them has begun to color the way I think.

I think about watering my garden as I reach out to my friends or put oil in my hair at night. I think about it when I take the stairs instead of the escalator out of the T or as I push to make just a couple more phone calls after 5 PM.

I think about it as I look in the mirror. When I see my life through the lens of my garden, I feel like an art curator

a lazy river enjoyer

a kid who swiped an extra square of chocolate from the cabinet stash.

Reverent, indulgent, slow movement.

Then I think back to when we were kids, and when that nourishment was baseline. I think back to the play and the creativity that came as a result when we lacked the concept of status, attraction, or productivity.

Maybe above Maslow’s self actualization, the pinnacle was actually chasing each other at recess.

I remember how saturated my world felt as my dad sat me down to touch the backyard irises for the first time. I concluded that they must be magic, and they reappeared the year after.

I don’t have to lose that perspective, and I don’t want to.

I am the plant to care for. I am the child to nourish.

And suddenly the sun hanging from the sky is whimsy.

Airplanes are a miracle, 

And the toad on the sidewalk is my friend.

Suddenly I am small and I crave rereading my sixth grade botany book like it’s a lifeline to the world’s secrets.

I want to handle them with care.