As Foretold by the Prophecy.

I’ve owned a plant for a very long time. His name is Fred. He’s lived in three states. He’s a pretty cool plant. I bought him at a Walmart in Hanford, California sometime around 2003. I have no idea what kind of plant he is. My mother says he’s an “avocado plant” which I think means she thinks he’s a very small avocado tree, though I have my doubts.  The thing I admire so much about Fred is that he simply refuses to die.

As you might imagine, I am not a very good plant keeper, so the fact that Fred is alive at all is testament to some weird quality about him that has nothing to do with me. Right now he is sitting on the window sill in my living room, his spindly green arms spread out against the window. If you try to sit under him on the couch it is like sticking your head into a little tiny pocket jungle. 

Once it became clear quarantine was going to last longer than expected (remember “15 days to slow the spread”?), I remember looking at Fred and thinking, “I should get some more plants.”

One of the carve outs in the modern incarnation of minimalism seems to be that you can have as many plants as you want. Like, you can own nothing but a single fork and a sleeping bag, but also so many plants that your studio apartment develops its own weather system. No one knows why this is acceptable, but every functioning philosophy of life has its own inborn contradictions, that’s why it can function.  

Rather than buying plants (How was I going to do that without leaving the house?) I bought an herb garden kit online and went about planting seems and raising parsley and basically — you know — becoming a farmer. Let me tell you, I am bad at this. I would peer down into my little planters and look at the withers stems of oregano that I killed by either under or over watering or maybe not giving them enough sun or maybe too much. Who knows? Surely science has not cracked this mystery yet. I think my success rate as a farmer so far hovers in the 30-30% range. Let me tell you though, I can grow the shit out of some parsley, apparently. 

I discovered you can order small succulents online, so I have some of those too! My success rate there is 75%, I know because I bought 12 and haven’t yet had the heart to throw out the three dead ones. 

Recently the Grocery Outlet where I shop — I love the Grocery Outlet precisely because it is an outlet and the inventory changes all the time — started selling plants! I bought two more succulents and so far they are doing pretty well. I can not tell you how much better my sad window sill herb gardens look with a couple of not-dying-yet plants thrown in.

One time back in about September when Covid cases were pretty low in my area, I drove about six miles to a little nursery in Seaside and I bought a couple of plants (which are now long dead) and I had that Covid anxiety and I remember thinking, “I probably should not have done this,” but the nursery was entirely outside and i went early on a Saturday and no one was there but the employees, but even still, I told myself I wouldn’t do it again.

The other day my mother mailed me an article about “Easy Care Houseplants” and I initially looked at it and thought, “well this is great, but I can’t go out and look for these particular plants.” But then I realized, one day soon I can! I get my second shot next week and then I have the two week waiting period AND THEN! I shall return to that little nursery and I shall announce, “It is I! And I have returned! As foretold by the prophecy!”

I read recently on the website Twitter.com that if you add, “As foretold by the prophecy” to the end of any statement it adds some gravitas.

So around the end of April or beginning of May, I can buy some of these “Easy Care Houseplants” I’ve heard so much about. I can maybe give up on my failing career as a farmer and bring to an end my slow murdering of herb plants.

Maybe. I kind of like dotting on the seedlings and watching the first green shoots emerge. Maybe I will cease killing plants by getting better at keeping them alive. I don’t know yet. Thirteen months ago, when all this pandemic business started, I never would have guessed I’d spend a year of my life counting my toilet paper rolls or jotting down the daily death totals in my journal. And I never would have guessed that I would have spent so much time and energy keeping delicate little plants alive.

Even though I have proven to be terrible at that last part, I still manage to take some inspiration from Fred. I look at his thick hearty leaves, dappled by April California sun beams and I am reminded that these little plants want to live, they want to grow. They want to keep on going. Fred keeps on going. I can keep on going. Maybe one day I will be able to get some of this fucking oregano to keep on going.

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