What I learned from our plants

Photo credit: Booker T. Sessoms 2024

After a month away, our plants look decidedly sadder. I survey the damage from the safety of behind the dining room table. I shouldn’t be allowed close to these plants at the best of times. My thumbs were never green. I know that my spouse has already tended to them as well as possible. Those who can, will survive.

But this is not just a story of woes. Several plants have thrived in our absence, building strength during this time of austerity, blooming from a place of need. Most of them have sprouted one or two new branches, unceremoniously shutting down — withering — the rest.

I don’t know what to do with that. Should I think of those plants as worthier because they are more resilient during droughts? Is it significant that these plants prioritized concentrated growth and self-amputated the rest?

I recognize the impulse, of course. When things are tight, we retreat, concentrate, prioritize. I also know that creativity is stronger under restraint: it is easier to write to a brief than free form. But I wonder what happens with the rest. The amputated stuff. The thoughts and designs that weren’t resilient. The elements that need nurture over neglect. I reject the celebration of strength where the conditions of suffering are imposed, unnecessary, man-made. But then what? We are where we are, and in this world resilience is key to survival in the face of the many imbalances we have created — droughts, conflicts, exclusion.

This is my worry: that we lose ourselves when we try to be strong. That the resilience we display under pressure exacerbates the inequities that made it necessary in the first place.

The plants will be fine: I have watched my spouse nurse them back from worse. And so will we. With authenticity, curiosity, and care.