06 April 2009

growing things

If I could bottle up days like this, I would. I would put the bottle on my shelf and admire the light shining through its amber glass, and on cold gray winter days I would take it down and open it, just a little, and inhale the fresh smell of earth and growing and pollen. And then I would probably sniffle and blow my nose for the rest of the day, and my eyes would water. Good times.

I am drinking local honey in hot water again, hoping for some bodily adjustment to this part of the world.

It's worth it, though, for days like this. I sat in the park at lunch, feeling the cool breeze on my back and the sun on my face. Summer is coming, slowly but surely. The springs are so long and cool here, but these days crop up periodically to give us hope and life.

...

I am attempting to grow plants from cuttings. This is a big step. I could never keep plants alive at all before I moved to Gone West. I think I generally forgot to water them. But when I moved here, I bought a jasmine plant, and then I bought a little palm, and then I got a mint plant, and then someone gave me a rosemary plant. Periodically, I nearly kill them, especially the mint, by leaving the blinds closed too many days in a row or neglecting to water them. (How is it possible that the mint keeps drifting near death? As R. said, "Isn't mint a WEED?" Why yes. I very nearly kill a weed, a weed that I am trying to keep alive, on a regular basis.)

But I have kept at least one plant alive for over a year, so I am taking a big risk. I got some cuttings of a strange bumpy-leaved plant from someone at work, and I bought some root-grow stuff and I had the potting soil that S. gave me, and I am trying to grow the cuttings into plants.

Hopes ought not be high, but I am ever the (secret) optimist. And it's been nearly a week and they are all three still standing tall in the dirt, not crumpled over in a dead heap, so I am hoping cautiously. If this works, there will be great rejoicing.

...

but in the end
what leaves you broken
in the end
makes you better...

~plumb, better.

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