I still don’t like indoor plants, exactly, but I have three of them now, and I’m ready to try to want them, at this stage in my life. There’s something very peaceful about how unsettled they make me, like I’m in the final stages of hypothermia. I get the sense that they’re always talking to me, just so slowly I can’t hear them. I suspect that they call me Mother – that irrespective of anyone’s sex, indoor plants hail everyone as Mother, because it’s a term that maximizes intimacy and creepiness faster than just about any other.
I just realized I always have a dead plant in the house, in addition to my two (2) live plants. I like to think that it keeps the others alive, out of fear of my neglect or jealousy for my attention. One plant was a housewarming gift from my mother (the grandmother of the plants) and the other from my grandmother (the great grandmother of the plants). The dead plant is an annual my ex keeps buying for me and wondering why it expires every fall. (There's allegory here.)
I thought that having all my plants in a weird suspension between life and death was a special skill of mine, but look! We could build a community around it.
It makes me sad to think of you coming home to just plants, though. This is why I'm always too afraid to only have one pet; life is too fragile and houses are too big.
I just realized I always have a dead plant in the house, in addition to my two (2) live plants. I like to think that it keeps the others alive, out of fear of my neglect or jealousy for my attention. One plant was a housewarming gift from my mother (the grandmother of the plants) and the other from my grandmother (the great grandmother of the plants). The dead plant is an annual my ex keeps buying for me and wondering why it expires every fall. (There's allegory here.)
this is just... tiny and horrific and perfect, thank you.
*now leaving the office to kill all my houseplants with fire*
I thought that having all my plants in a weird suspension between life and death was a special skill of mine, but look! We could build a community around it.
It makes me sad to think of you coming home to just plants, though. This is why I'm always too afraid to only have one pet; life is too fragile and houses are too big.
Oh, man, I'm also really trying with my plants, and I've got four that are all in varying stages of death and I feel outsized anxiety about them.