Every spring and fall I go through the same routine: houseplants out, houseplants in. I move them to different sections of the patio
and yard after a winter spent indoors hovering in the space between life and
death.
The process started innocently. I had some empty rooms, a small budget and
little kids, so on cold, rainy days I’d take a drive to the indoor nursery
where the caged parrot lived. It might
as well have been the Garden of Eden; I dreamed as I strolled through the
humid, sunny rooms, breathing in the brief respite from the drab brown winter
outside, imagining the ease with which I would transform my living spaces into
green. It would be just the thing I needed to fight off the blues. My kids
talked to the parrot, who talked back to them, while I tried to remember which
rooms had sun in my house as I read the Latin names.
At some point, I’d settle on a large leafed plant with
minimal requirements and then head over to the clay pot section and choose
something that caught my eye. Then I’d try
to find the right size saucer that fits underneath the pot, though every time I
went the size I’d need would be sold out.
Suffice it to say, my yearly purchases of houseplants did little to fix
my decorating problems. In fact, usually the plant I ended up with had
requirements just beyond my reach.
Either my house was too dry or too dark, or some combination of
both. Sometimes white sticky patches
would find their way to the leaves by springtime, at which point I’d be sure
they’d be dead before fall. And although
most people would agree that half dead plants do not improve the aesthetics of
a room, I repeated this optimistic journey yearly.
Until now.
It is fall again and as I stared at the plants in the yard
last week, I knew in my heart that I could not bring them back in. I don’t know why, but suddenly I could not
look at them in my house any longer. I
could not go through the process of finding them a space in a room in which
they no longer quite fit between the drums and piano; I could not go through
the realization that I forgot to water them again last week by the look of the
leaves. I could not face the fact that
they were daily not getting what they really needed—sun, humidity, a person who
understood the actual meaning of their Latin names. Though I can raise kids,
chickens, cats and dogs, I admit finally to myself that I cannot raise
houseplants.
So there I am in the yard with the pots and plants and this
miserable decision I’ve made. I have to
send the poor tropical plants to the cold winter woods. I think I have to get it over quickly before
I change my mind and I walk with my goal but without my heart. I quickly turn the first pot over to dump out
the plant that has suffered with me all these years and nothing happens. The plant doesn’t dump out. It is stuck to the pot. I pull.
I tug. I push. I am sweating. The irony, I think –all this time when I
thought I had barely kept the plant alive, I realize now that my plant was
indestructible. I head to the shed and get a garden shovel that is slightly
bigger than the pot---so when I use my weight to strike the dirt I miss and hit
my hand instead. And now I bleed.
But then finally, finally, the plant lets go and hits the
ground. I breathe a sad sigh of relief
and head back to the house for bandaids. I don’t look back.
I tell myself I am making my life simpler; I tell myself letting go of
possessions will make me free. I wishfully
hope my plants will magically take root in the dirt and forgive me. Most of all I wish I could stop thinking about the poor plants that I betrayed. And then on my way, I notice some flowers I
planted in the summer. Surely, I think,
they will die in the frost.
Instinctively, with my shovel still in my hand, I dig them out of the
ground to rescue them. A few minutes
later, I have set them in the window of the dining room, wondering if they will
have enough light. I have never tried
this spot before. Maybe it will be
better.
