The Houseplant

Humans are incredibly strange.

I don’t think there are many other creatures who get off on the growth or death of other living beings solely for entertainment or fulfillment.

Other creatures act with a motivation for survival. They enjoy things like sun, rain, mud and water bodies for fulfillment. Sometimes one another, but regardless...

What is this love people have for houseplants? They don’t eat anything except light, nor do they drink anything but water (and the occasional drunken piss, I suppose) and they don’t provide conversation, if you’re sane.

It always makes me sad. My mom used to keep a couple of potted plants at the bay window facing our backyard with its lush lawn and swingset. I noticed it looked just slightly lopsided and asked my mom how you can make a plant compeltely symmetrical.

“You can’t,” she said. “Things aren’t like in cartoons. They actually all grow a little bit differently. Like snowflakes.”

I was too young to gag on the cliche, but there was far too much truth in that to even scoff at in adulthood.

She tenderly turned the plant so the slightly less developed side could face the light. I personified it in my head, imagined a little voice squealing with happiness as it reached for the sun.

“Plants grow toward the light,” said Mom. “Their roots go deep down to reach the water and their leaves catch sunshine. They’re like little solar panels.”

Weird that I knew what solar panels were, but the idea of plants - the original solar panels - was so foreign to me.

Here’s the thing. You don’t nurture a solar panel. You set it up to face the light and you hook it up to something that you need or want powered. It is advantageous to you. It provided some people with the power to heat water and some even more pious and foward-thinking individuals who probably drink from metal straws and use resuable bags and let-the-yellow-mellow in the toilet...probably use to cover half to all of their electric needs.

No one considers this selfish.

The little plant reached for the sun. Slowly enough, of course, that I couldn’t see it as I stared at it for an obscene amount of time. As children we learn from what we see and we believe what we are told. She could have told me babies come from trees and I would probably have run outside with a basket, hoping to catch a baby brother. Unfortunately...or fortunately for my generation and others...plants do not provide such a delivery. Instead, they sit there and they grow toward the light.

What’s the point?

I watched her look with satisfaction on her little plant that had started as a tiny little seedling-looking-thing. (I don’t have a green thumb. Can you tell?) For how closely I looked at it, I cannot seem to remember what kind of plant it would be. She told me that once it was strong enough, it would go outside and sit in the garden and continue to grow. I hated it...yet I didn’t want it to die. It made me sad it was going to sit out in the rain by itself...maybe wondering why my mom no longer had it in a cute little pot and turned it to face the light when it needed help.

It’s odd. I don’t remember resenting the tomato plants. Maybe it’s because I took everything from it. I pruned them once in awhile, but mostly, I picked the tomatoes and felt a sense of satisfaction.

What was it about the way she turned the little pot and carefully sprinkled water over the potting soil that made me so angry?

Any adult can probably guess the answer. Honestly, I would have buried myself in a tiny pot if I thought it would make her protect me from the elements and gently look at me the way she looked at the plant. There was no admonishing of the plant when the plant grew slowly...even more slowly than anything in the garden that season. It was planted away from the other plants that would overtake it.

Having never been a plant, I feel it is odd that we are gardeners. So attuned to what we perceive their needs to be. Dogs bark and howl, chickens squawk, bunnies thump. Humans...well, humans are a whole lot of complicated.

That’s what I hated.

I think all through life I have been reaching for the son, groping through the dirt for water at the roots...never understanding the parts of me that connect the vital nutrients to the legitimate or perceived health inside.

Is this the only reason we grow? Do we look up at the gardener and wish they understood us? Do we bear fruit only to have it plucked away and enjoyed? What about the end of the season?

We grow or we die?