A few weeks ago, at around two o’clock in the afternoon, a sort of semi-regular called me up while I was puttering around my apartment. “I’m watering my plants”, I said in reply to his niceties. “Naked”, I added after half a beat, a smile creeping up on my face. “And yourself?”
“Wishing I was one of those plants getting a three sixty degree view of you”, he said without missing a beat. I laughed.
*****
It’s December so other than the ritual waiting of snow fall, I’m sitting amidst an explosion of pinks, purples, and greens and trying to write a poetic reflection on 2018. I’m blank. 2018 has been one hell of a roller coaster ride, but I find that I have no complaints. For every year that repeats, it is a blessing.
My potted rubber tree, ficus elastica burgundy, gently sheds a leaf.
I am decidedly a city girl who has grown up with a lot of plants in my life. Over the years when I moved from city to city remaining unmoored, I’d acquire a pot or two of greenery and perch them on a window, their rooted company providing a harmonizing familiarity. And though I can tell you a lot of stories of hedonism aided by my green friends, the end of 2018 brings a rather simple story of growth and self-care. My ficus had unintentionally been deprived of light for more than a week, and so until I could install a new GloGro bulb, she started her sad, premature farewell. She drooped, she sighed, her underleaf turned brown to lament her tortured existence (she could have been playing a sad little violin if I anthropomorphized her any further). When I finally gave her what she needed, she perked up almost instantly. Two new sprouts unfurled before she had shed the last of her browning leaves on my floor. The lesson here was simple: whatever calamity that triggered her self preservation mode was past, new light was here, it was time to reach for my ceiling anew.
How have you grown this year? Tomorrow is the solar new year, the start of what I like to call the season of new years. As I prepare for the day, I leave the question up in my living room on butcher paper, and people trooping in and out of my door scribble doodles, leave reflections, share their joys. It’s a good time to measure past success, to commit to new beginnings, to manifest aspirations and ambitions. It is a season of new growth, of jubilation, of celebration and joy. So regardless of if you plan to stay up tonight to ring in the new year or to see the old one go, it is a good time to start writing a new chapter in your story. I, for one, am rooting for you!
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