People Will Say We're in Love

Standing in the corners of my home, balancing on the window ledges and squatting in spots throughout my kitchen, I have things growing. My family of plants. Green and red and yellow. We are a rainbow, day and night.

I have things that are potted with dirt that I water. I have leaves that tumble from the tops of bookcases, threatening to take over the television next. It feels like a hug whenever I come home to this small two bedroom apartment.

I live on the 14th floor. I sometimes fantasize about letting the vines grow over the balcony, straight to the ground below. As many as there are, they would not make an adequate way for me to escape. None of the vines are strong enough to hold my weight even if I tried to tie them all together.

These vines are not like Rapunzel's hair. Rapunzel had been hardened. She’d been through trauma. She was close to breaking apart. Anyone could travel up and down her hair. These plants of mine are sweet. They are innocent. They are not like their brothers and sisters that live untamed, covering 84% of life on Earth.

Those plants are troublemakers. They are rough. If those plants could speak or grab things, they would curse and they would abduct. They would attack people if they could because they have seen trauma as well.

I don't want my plants to ever experience such horror. But I have to live. I have to stay alive despite my trauma. I have to keep myself safe so that I am always here. Because if I'm not here I don't know what will happen to my plants.

Maybe they will wind up in the wilderness. They can't survive in the wilderness. They don't have the instincts. I tell them that daily. I have seen a fern look at me cross eyed. Sideways. A little disbelieving. But I know that my plants are not hard. They can't take it. I know that my philodendron needs to be dry before I water it. And my ficus likes light but not in its face. I know my plants.

I sing to them. I sing my favorite musicals. "Wouldn't it be Loverly?" spills out of me and pours all over them. I know they love my singing because look at them! They're thriving! I really throw myself into my original version of "I Can't Say No." But they will only join in when I sing "Ooooooklahoma." We're like a little community theater in here. I don't know why but I never feel more comfortable than when I'm with my plants.

I've had people ask me why I don't have more, but the truth is the investment is enormous. Each plant matters to me. I care. I know them. I name them. In fact I don't make up the names. I get their names from them. I ask, “who are you?” I listen to them. When a plant first comes to me, I sit and listen. I turn off my music. I take deep breaths. I undress. I want the plants to know that I'm just as naked as they are, and that they can trust me. And I won't send them to the wild. I won't let them be a part of that nonsense.

They breathe my carbon dioxide. I'll make plenty of it. Sometimes I have a small party just to have extra exhaled air. No one knows that. They think I am being social. If they only knew that I am using them for their air, I think they would laugh and keep coming back.

But usually I'm alone. I take deep breaths. I like to feel the oxygen they make. It's a connection that I don't think most people think about. They are inside of me, and I am inside of them. Our relationship is reciprocal. Our relationship is dynamic. I couldn't say that about any humans that I know.

I don't feel that way about any boyfriend I've ever had. Or family members for that matter. Less and less I visit the grave sites or bring a casserole dish to the latest wedding. I haven't been on a date since Oliver was just a sapling. He's a spider plant who hangs over my bed and has seen more of me than any man, that's for sure. He's a better partner because he listens to me. He gets what he needs but he doesn't make a show of it. He's never made a demand of me. I know what he needs, and I give it to him.

His green fingers stretch down all the way to the pillow of the partner who does not exist. His tendrils are thick and strong and I know that he is healthy. I know he is happy. He is mine. And when I'm alone in my room with him because he is the only plant I keep there, I sing something other than show tunes. I sing Janis Ian. I sing the Bee Gees. I sing the songs that my mother taught me because she sang them to me as she sat on the end of my fluffy pink bed and tried to put me to sleep. There were no plants in our home back then when she was still alive. No man either. It was just the two of us. And it was okay for me to sleep naked. And that's what I tell Oliver. I tell him that I feel as safe with him as I did with my own mother. And I lean into another song.

I know that Oliver, like the other plants, sometimes gets tired of hearing me tell him that he's better off here with me because I know that's exactly what my mother said to me when I tried to leave her home. She sang a fence around me. And I never moved out. She died. And I'm still here. There’s a new bed. Lots of plants. Still safe. Still naked. Singing my heart out day and night. Feeding my plants exactly what they need when they need it. At least somebody's going to be happy in this greenhouse of mine.