To All the Houseplants I Killed Over the Years

Believe me, I’ve tried.

Growing up, our house always had plants inside. Tiny vines of this or that in the kitchen and large tropical plants in the den. Mom just seemed to know when they needed to be watered and how to turn them for just the right light and then, some days, as if talking to them, she would set them out on the back patio to soak up the sun. Just enough. She made it look so easy.

So in college I thought I would try doing those kinds of things adults do that kids never do, voluntarily take on responsibilities for living things because you can, because they bring a kind of joy to your life and in exchange, you give up some of your time and money to keep them around. Plants, cats, dogs, fish.

I started with an African violet, given to me by my ADPi “big sis,” whose name escapes me. I’m pretty certain I was not the top of her list and she made it clear that she knew my name, would buy me a beer, but other than this African violet (the sorority flower), she would give me nothing. Not a ride to a party. Not help on my math exam. Certainly not her phone number.

Maybe, in some way, the violet was tainted and when it died a few months later, after I had decided sorority life was not for me, I wasn’t sad. I didn’t see it as the precursor to all the other houseplants I would try to grow. Two years later, I was living in a house in upstate New York, and I filled a windowsill full of tiny potted plants, given to me by friends with assurances that “You cannot kill this plant.”

Overwatering. Underwatering. Playing REM too loudly, not playing Chopin loudly enough. We smoked a lot. The air was filled with things that kill other things. The plants could not survive, did not survive. I think, sometimes, it’s lucky we did.