Houseplants
September 02, 2008
I was given a little house plant awhile back. It was in a tiny pot and growing fast, with flexible green stalks and serving-spoon-sized waxy green leaves. I re-potted it in a much bigger container, and put it in my window. I fertilized the soil, added plant food, and watered it. The plant began growing ambitiously.
When I got home today it surprised me. It had become bigger. More complicated. Messier. New leaves and chutes and stalks sprang forth, wherever they pleased, without the slightest consideration of where I might want them to grow. How I might want them to look.
I took the plant from the window. I raked the soil even with my fingers, and straightened the stalks up off the ground delicately. I covered the soil evenly with stones, making it look tidy, intentional. I used a razor to cut away the leaves that sprouted too close to ground level and were ugly. I used thread to bind the fleshy green stalks together, two or three at a time. I bound each group of stalks to each other, bringing the leaves up higher, accentuating the lean glossy legs, defining a trunk that would never exist naturally. I arranged the leaves, fanning out radially from each bound trunk, and then I looked at my plant, and it was good. I put it back into the window.
I hope that it will survive.
I climbed into bed. Someday, I will have children.
Tags for this piece: nonfiction strange ego plants kids