It’s the end of the year, and things in Maine are beginning to look… well.. dead. They’re not, of course, they’re just sleeping until Spring. But things outside my windows and under my feet are brown, crisp, crunchy, withered, bare. The evergreens are living up to their name (except those crazy tamarack/larch trees – how fun are they!?), but they’re preparing for the upcoming change as well, in their own way.
Our move this year brought us to a whole new ecosystem – one I’ve been hoping all my life to find and call my own. I walk into our new home, walk down a dark, narrow hallway (for now – it’s on my list of painting and lighting projects), which opens up into a 50-foot room with a wall of windows overlooking acres of trees, a beautiful pond and hills in the distance. It’s not perfect, but it’s as close to it as we can afford. It’s heaven on earth. We can watch the seasons change in real time, every day. Even now, as we sit in our warm living room and watch the snow gently fall upon the bare branches – birch, oak, maple – punctuated by the deep uplifting texture of green branches and brown leaves, we feel the life force that courses all around us. So far, we can still see the ripples on the water, still hear the streams trickling as we take our dog walking (and drag her out of said unfrozen pond and streams, dripping, muddy, smiling with her tongue hanging out and tearing around on the moss and roots in ultimate bliss), and can still stand out on the deck in stocking feet and sweats at night, marveling at the endless breadth of the Universe.
But soon that will all change. We’ll still go walking, but more briskly, and wearing warmer boots and possibly snowshoes or cross-country skis. The dog may be able to walk on the pond and the streams, but not in them. The crunch of the leaves will give way to the crunch of snow and ice. The deck will have to be shoveled and kept relatively clear of ice, though we won’t be bringing out the lounge chairs for a while, the long driveway plowed and shoes will definitely have to be worn. Winter, as they say, is coming.
But how about inside? I’ve lost count of the number of plants I have on the deep sills of all those windows – a few of which I’ve had literally since college (for those of you counting, I graduated over 4 decades ago – those are long-lived plants! And charmed enough to have outlasted their brothers and sisters who weren’t so lucky). I do know that I have 11 orchid plants, because I have to carry them to the sink once a week for watering. Thirty-seven steps. Each way. Once to bring to the sink, once to bring back. I’m definitely getting my steps in. That 11 used to be 16 or so. Last year I lost some, and it made me very sad. One was a special species that I fell in love with, but overwatered and rotted the roots within a few months. That one hurt. A few were knocked from their windowsill by a very large and overzealous dog doing her household duty by going ballistic when someone came to the door, and didn’t recover from the shock. One or two were never really that healthy to begin with – purchased on Etsy from a seller who wasn’t that interested in whether they arrived in good condition. And, for those of you who are reading and thinking – but, aren’t orchids really hard to take care of anyway? No, they’re really not – water once per week or so (I’ve skipped some occasionally with no ill effects), spritz the roots once or twice a week with water, feed now and then, and talk to them and tell them how beautiful they are. NO ICE. That is all.
But the regular, run-of-the-mill houseplants. .. I have a little less luck with those. The “easy” plants, I have kept going – some, as noted above, for quite a long time. Philodendra, Spider plants (I challenge you to try to kill one of those), Snake plants, Succulents, a Thanksgiving cactus (blooming now!), Peace lilies (they need more water than you might think) – they all thrive. I even received a pineapple plant from my husband (for our 8th wedding anniversary – apparently that’s the traditional gift), which fruited (it was tangy but delicious). I lopped the leafy “crown” off the fruit, rooted it, and now have another pineapple plant. The original plant succumbed, which is normal, but its slip/sucker is HUGE, and now there’s a little pup next to it in the pot we had to transplant it into.
Yet let’s talk about the casualties. The ones that are memorable are, of course, the ones I paid for (not unlike the beautiful orchid, which cost more than I want to think about). They include (but are not limited to) prayer plants, ivy, aglaonema, croton, fittonia, pitcher plant – the flashy, pretty, unusual, furry, colorful… special plants which all left this world before their time, due either to my ignorance, undercare or overcare. I mourned each one in turn, and vowed to do better next time.
But then the miracle happened. At a flea market (one of those permanent ones in the old chicken barns) I bought a half-price plant that was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen. It has crimson red leaves, with black centers and black and greenish edges, and is “diamond dusted” – an effect of iridoplasts or tiny hairs that reflect the light in various ways. It literally sparkles in the light. I have since discovered that it’s called a “Red Kiss” or “Red Heart” Begonia. I just call it my amazingly beautiful miracle plant. Because, believe it or not, I have killed it multiple times.
Not on purpose, of course, but dead to the eye nonetheless. I sadly, and in a panic over one of my very favorite plants starting to fail; watched it wither, then brown, then totally dry up and become crisp, then disappear. I felt really awful. Guilty, sad, angry with myself. My lovely plant was gone. So what did I do? Did I throw it away? Did I plant something else in the pot? Did I vow never to buy another plant?
No. I… kept watering it. I mean, I kept watering the pot where it once lived. Splashed water on the soil that once held its beautiful sparkly red and black leaves, whispering “I’m sorry” with each drop that fell on the dead roots beneath the surface. I watered it not just once, but every time I watered all of my other plants. I have no idea why I did so. I just did. Maybe out of guilt, sadness, anger… but I kept watering. For days, weeks, months. It became a reflex. I just kept watering. Really interesting for someone who collects bones and talks to dead people. You would think that I would be ok with letting things go by now. And I usually am. But I kept watering nonetheless.
Then, one day, I saw it – a sprout. I was astonished… and confused, and incredulous. But there it was – the plant was rising from the “dead.” It grew new leaves – and even eventually bloomed for the first time ever. I didn’t even know it could bloom! But there it was, my beautiful old plant… new.
But a few months later, it began to die again. Slowly turning black, withering, dying. I was sad again. Even angrier at myself than before – what in the world was I doing wrong?? But I kept watering. It had worked last time, right?
And, there it was – a few months or so later… more sprouts, new plant, new beautiful leaves, even some new blooms. It came back so well this time that it began outgrowing its original pot and I had to put it into something bigger, crossing my fingers and holding my breath at the same time. There were a few more incidents of die-off of some of the leaves, but it has never totally (or almost totally, as it were) died since. In the interim I realized that some begonias just don’t like their leaves getting wet, so I am always VERY careful not to do so when I water it now. I’m so grateful for my zombie plant and the lessons it taught me.
What lessons are those? Well, one of them is kind of out there. I still water dead plants for an inordinately long time after there is seemingly no hope. The ivy (finally called it). That incredible (and expensive) pitcher plant (still in the pot, but… well… I probably need to let go soon too). That amazingly beautiful orchid – the shriveled roots still sitting in a pot with one of my healthy orchids, being attended by a tiny angel figurine that I pray will someday reanimate it. Unlikely. But what does it harm to keep hoping?
I’ve actually begun to extrapolate my begonia experience to other “dead” things in my life. Knowing there was once a time when I would have tried to nurture things that should have been allowed to stay dead back to life – such as unhealthy relationships, jobs, attachments, I’m pretty selective about what I set revitalizing attention to. I’ve been concentrating on things that I can control, that I know are good for me, that enhance my life and bring me joy. That includes my hopes, my desires, the relationships that matter to me. Reanimating the dead takes energy, and there’s only so much of that to go around these days.
Funny how only one instance of witnessing something coming back from the dead gives one hope for the future. Witnessing the death and rebirth of a plant… of relationships… of a country… it gives one hope that just about anything can have a happy ending.