I'm good with animals, too. I spent two summers working as a zookeeper, and was the ONLY keeper for whom the zebras would approach the wagon rides. You want to see a zebra up close or have a chance at petting one? You better hope you were on one of my rides. In fact, I was the chosen keeper for training the camels and tagging baby deer, too. I spent 3 years in college volunteering at the local humane society, and at no point in my childhood had fewer than 3 pets, including, at most points, 2 dogs. If you're small and/or furry, there is a good chance that I will love you and take great pleasure in caring for you.
This is all to point out how sad it is in comparison that I kill every plant I have the audacity to look directly at. It isn't that I don't like plants, because I do. I especially love flowers, which my mom will tell you is partially why I kill everything. I insist on trying to grow flowering plants on windowsills with far too little sunlight, which is why they don't flower and, in most cases, don't live. But I don't care. Why would I grow ivy when I could grow daisies? The answer, of course, is that I CAN'T grow daisies, but whatever. I have, on occasion, set my sights lower, like the time I got a cactus. I was assured by multiple people that I could not kill a cactus, which was the basis of my purchasing it. It seemed to do well enough in the week or so I had it in Virginia, and then I put it in a cup holder to drive it 20 hours to school in Minnesota. I mean, it was in a flower pot, so what's the big deal? Well, at some point during the trip, perhaps while veering wildly to avoid a median, or while flailing in excitement at seeing a taco bell, or while trying to unearth a case of CDs from underneath some bedding, the cactus tipped over and fell out of the pot. Since there was still dirt all around the roots, I figured it was fine and stuck it back in the pot and vacuumed up the rest of the dirt. Apparently this is NOT how you care for unearthed cactus, because it died. Only- and here is the really sad part- I didn't know it was dead. I thought it seemed to be getting smaller, but convinced myself that I was just imagining things. That is, until the day when a book fell on it and it literally collapsed in on itself, revealing an interior that was completely hollow except for a bit of opaque ooze that, to be honest, reeked.
Anyway, I love to care for things, but do not have a green thumb. My mom gave me 3 pots of flowers that have managed to stay green on my windowsill, but have ceased to produce flowers (the little jerks). A few weeks ago, however, I was given three little flower pots in a bag of donated art supplies from the preschool where I used to work. The art supplies are for my art group at work, but the flower pots, I couldn't help but feel, were meant for me. After all, what would 14 adults do with 3 tiny flower pots? They came with little cakes of dirt you soak in water to make expand and 2 packets of seeds. I was hesitant to get my heart involved in something I know will end in sorrow, but then decided to go for it. I took my paintbrushes out of my tall plastic cup and soaked the little cakes of dirt. When they had achieved regular dirt status, I filled up the little pots and planted a few seeds in each one. For several days, I dribbled just a little water into each one, remembering from my grow-your-own daisy kit (which I later killed) that new seeds need pretty damp soil (but not TOO damp, but how do you KNOW?) and I waited. And I waited. And then today, out of nowhere, were 13 tiny sprouts! There are 3 in one pot, 2 in another, and 8 in the other other. It is just so beautiful. Yesterday I had three pots of dirt, and today I have 13 teeny tiny living growing beautiful plants. Sprouts. Whatever they are. They are supposed to grow into mums, though I am smarter than to think I will ever guide them to that stage. I know that they will last a few weeks and then slowly, much to my dismay, begin to wilt and die.
One day I really, really want to have a beautiful garden. I want to have a yard with so many daisies that you could pick a bouquet every day and never know the difference. I want to have pink roses that grow along a blue fence and tomato plants that produce so many tomatoes that I and the hundreds of orphans I hope to raise will be able to eat them at every meal. Actually, while I'm dreaming, I'm going to go ahead and say that I want tomato plants that produce all year long. Why stop in August? Give me tomatoes in February! I want to grow fresh herbs to season all the food I make, and plants inside in pots- two for every piece of electronic equipment in the room. I know this will (most likely) never happen, but today I don't care. Today I have 13 plants that I planted and watered and love, and I love them all the more for their vulnerability and inevitable demise.
"nothing we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility" e e cummings
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