Plant Love in the Time of Covid

I can’t name the precise moment it happened, but my heart and my bank account have permanently shifted priorities, confirmed by the many months of isolation. Now in 2023, I take stock of all of the change that’s happened in my life including the joy within hardship, a joy that lives in my not exclusive but definitely emphatic enamor for plants.

I write of my heart as if it is separate from me, a sorry attempt to remove some ownership from this precariously green place I have come to. I cannot help myself. I trace my steps to plant shops and leave each one with a small (or large) shallow (or deep) framed box full to the brim. They are each so lovely and special.

These lovely plants sadly remain strangers to me even in their thoughtfully perched places. I forget their names, especially the Latin ones, the instant I remove their tag. What I never seem to forget though is how I expect their vibrancy and growth to remain indefinitely perfect, as if these were not living, breathing creatures.

their life is for more than my pleasure

An epiphany has continually hit me through this time of pandemic, embarrassed that I need to revisit how to act on it despite all of those epiphanic moments, but here it is: I expect these plants to provide a joy for me, bring literal and figurative “life” into my home and yet I give them shite care. Usually, I water without attention and ignorantly hope for the best, only to hold cracked leaves in my hand. Each time, I cringe at the sight. Each time, I am reminded their pleasure is important, too.

It requires attention and time, which I am not always eager to give, often away from home but for the few hours in the evening. The beautiful reality is integrating plant love is totally possible and I want to share the experience and the soiled mess that is our shared existence, my plants and I.

they calm my anxious breath

The first couple of weeks of quarantine seemed like a warped sabbatical. I was working, but within new constraints and I had so many hours to ponder what was happening, to fear what was to happen, and to learn that I am far less an introvert than I originally thought. It was relentless, this under-current of anxiety, and being alone seemed to cement it further. Plants urged me to think otherwise. They provided a sustenance of purpose and appreciation. I could marvel at their growth, explore their propagation, lament and learn from their ailments. That purpose took me out of my head and into the movements I gratefully could fold into. I put my hands in soil, into present moments, and from the fresh air I inhaled, I exhaled clarity.

plant whisperer practice benefits

It is a sacred time. It requires me to slow down, to say the name and find the needs of that plant; test the dirt, place it on the porch ledge (now kitchen sink) to let the water run freely, mist leaves, and remove saddened foliage. I still feel despondent when I see those saddened crumble brown. Then I remember it is a continual process, that sometimes what looks like “death” is sometimes the necessary cyclical shedding for rebirth. And then, sometimes, the “death” of the plant is in fact the death of the plant. I remember talking to a plant expert in West Seattle, and he mentioned the Fragrans Madenshair is a beautiful and demanding personality. At the slightest mistake or negligence, they become deeply upset. So, high as I was on my plant love excitement, I bought it, forgot to water for three days, and it became a faded relic of itself. It said I’m done with you. I was quite done with myself, really. Still, the human practice of mistakes and misunderstandings can offer wisdom, if let in. I am trying to let the wisdom in. There is a wonderful calm that occurs when I notice the welfare of these plants. A kind of notice that inspires the act of loving in general.

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a name: love is in the little things too

Louie

She is my oldest plant, the pothos with variegated color, big punch of neon green, has weathered many storms of neglect and stuck by me through my own growth. she was home between my Sw corner windows, at my desk where I looked up and marvel at how far we’d come together. She now resides at my dear friend’s home, I got to visit her over christmas and see her thrive in erica’s kitchen. I still like to think of her as part of my plant family.

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what aloneness can look like in isolation

I am both in love and wary of being alone. It is the space for restoration and also the ground for loneliness to thrive. It is loneliness that my anxiety seems to cling to and linger while I endlessly waver. There were moments that wore me as brittle as the dead leaves, feelings and strained sensations that needed to expand beyond my body, beyond my walls. My volition crumbled from my dried soul. The dozens of plants I watered in those months of isolation though redefined for me the tangle of alone and lonely and anxious. When I put my hands in soil to gently make space for the roots to settle, I know my loneliness is decomposing deep in the dirt, and the company like this is community, too.

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Gerta

They are a sweet Calathea Ornata, neighbor to the sofa in my new apartment. She is the more subtle of its compatriot, Calathea, who I named so because Calathea is just a great name for both a species and daily name (Calathea lives, too, in bellingham at my brother and sister-in-law’s and looking glorious in their care). Large in stature, they are two shades of green, the darker lines look as though they have been painted on. At night they tighten their leaves up as if to huddle for sleep and then splay out with the daylight, like palms raised in praise. This cathartic motion is all the more loved as new leaves emerge like a rolled-up scroll, unfurling into another painted canvas, unique and sibling to all the rest.

The merge into new life

The pandemic is not a distant memory here in July of 2023. We are still in the reality and shadows of it with positive cases, deaths mourned, boosters, and shifting mask policies. And still, green and its shades that follow the seasons of death and rebirth remain present through it all. The walks I took gave great comfort, the rustle of leaves was an entirely different kind of communication and provided some rich conversation for my spirit. They still do. That is not an isolated experience, but an entirely universal one.

So, I am taking these reflections made in my own company and applying them in other parts of my life. My relationships, my design work, study, and collaboration with others. It involves exploring how nature has both the ability and creativity to provide play and rest. This passive and active interaction joins us through time, magnolia’s natural perfume seeped into pores and memory, those brittle brown leaves plucked from a green stem, all inspired anticipation for every season. We are not just onlookers to nature’s beauty; we are stewards and participants of it.

There is an architect who framed this concept beautifully: